EU Joint Research Center
EU Joint Research Center and others
2021
The "Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies" is a comprehensive resource aimed at assisting local authorities and stakeholders in implementing integrated urban strategies within cohesion policy. It serves as a policy learning tool tailored to diverse territorial and administrative contexts, offering practical suggestions for addressing challenges in strategy design and implementation. The Handbook outlines six key building blocks essential for sustainable urban development: strategic dimension, territorial focus, governance, cross-sectoral integration, funding and finance, and monitoring. It is a collaborative effort by the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC), enriched by contributions from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars. Additionally, the Handbook utilizes data from STRAT-Board, an online tool showcasing sustainable urban development strategies implemented from 2014 to 2020.
The Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies provides valuable knowledge on how to implement integrated and place-based urban strategies under cohesion policy. It aims to serve local authorities, managing authorities and all other relevant stakeholders.
The Handbook is conceived as a policy learning tool, responding to the needs of different territorial and administrative contexts. It does not provide a ‘quick fix’, but rather, it offers suggestions on how to tackle key challenges during the process of strategy design and implementation, by giving concrete examples, and referring to existing studies and guidelines.
The Handbook addresses the EU’s integrated approach to urban development by means of six building blocks: strategic dimension, territorial focus, governance, cross-sectoral integration, funding and finance, and monitoring.
The Handbook is a joint initiative by the Commission’s Directorates-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO), and the Joint Research Centre (JRC), and which benefits from active involvement from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars. The Handbook relies on data available in STRAT-Board, a database and online tool which provides an overview of SUD strategies implemented in 2014-2020.