

Today, if you go to Athens, or to Sofia or other 
Bulgarian cities, you see something that is a copy of 
other experiences and it is very difficult to stop that 
process. People want to become international. They 
do not realise how good they are where they are. 
Bringing in this notion of ‘do not grow’ is not easy. One 
of the challenges we confront, particularly the one of 
sustainability, requires a change of lifestyle. This goes 
beyond switching off the light or not using water. This 
goes through a much more sophisticated and political 
process that will be very conflicted. The city governance 
role is to create conditions for changes in habits, 
lifestyle and modes of behaviour. It should lead to less 
aggressive and less greedy individual choices without 
falling into the trap of collectivist, centralised, inefficient 
and wasteful institutions and decision-making. […]” 

107 Rettich, Stefan, op. cit. 
108 Already the case in Brussels where many regeneration projects have foreseen such ‘shared spaces’. 
109 Zaimov, Martin, Workshop 2 Cities of tomorrow – Visions and models, Brussels, October 2010. 



Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

3.4. Creating a resilient 
and inclusive economy 
We are no longer in a situation of continuous economic and 
demographic growth. The negative effects of the economic 
and financial crisis, especially the reduced public budgets 
and a rising need for social expenditure, have brought 
many cities closer to a similar situation, where they are 
faced with the challenge of redeveloping and diversifying 
their economies, of creating stronger links between the 
local economy and the global one and of becoming more 
attractive for a skilled and active workforce. 

Even the cities that are doing better and have more 
competitive and diversified economies have problems with 
the structural unemployment of youths and groups who are 
less qualified and more marginalised. They are faced with 
the challenges of creating stronger links between economic 
and social development and reducing socio-economic 
polarisation. 

The fact that all cities are very dependant on national 
economic policies and development patterns is a challenge 

in itself. They thus have to be inventive in terms of policy 
and policy instruments, and focus resources where they can 
be best deployed. 

3.4.1. Managing transitionstowards 
aviable local economy 
To what extent are cities capable of changing the direction 
of their development trajectory or even moving to another 
one? First, the determinants of the trajectories must be 
identified based on understanding the city’s development 
potential. When considering this potential, it is not 
sufficient to understand only the performances of the 
public and private sectors – these have accounting systems 
and are measurable by conventional indicators – but also to 
include collective goods and positive externalities, i.e. nonmonetary 
complementary sources of well-being. Together 
they generate an urban surplus. 

If a decoupling of economic and social development and 
increasing polarisation within cities are to be avoided, new 
paradigms of economic development are needed that will 
emphasise the domestic urban economy. Such an economy 

Figure4 Understanding a city’s development potential 

City's development potential110 


Level of urban surplus Private sector's Public sector's 
self-organisation decision modes 
mechanisms 


Agents' objective Agents' cognitive ability 
functions 

Source: Calafati, Antonio, op. cit. 

110 Calafati, Antonio, op. cit. ‘When assessing the development potential of European cities, three spheres have to be examined: 

(1) the amount of urban surplus; (2) the private sector’s self-organisation mechanisms and (3) the public sector’s decision modes. 
Insufficient “development potential” may be rooted in one or more of these spheres and to assess its precise origin 
from a regional, national or European perspective is not a minor task.’ 

would not depend solely on export-oriented sectors but build 
to a higher degree on development of endogenous resources. 

One of the crucial issues for the diversification of the 
local economy is the extent of economic surplus from 
current economic activities, how it is distributed, and the 
governance mechanisms affecting how it is fed back into 
the city’s further development. In addition, collective 
goods, i.e. public goods or goods that are not exchanged 
in the market but are self-produced and exchanged within 
small groups such as a family, club or social network 
or association, are of great importance, and are always 
underplayed in economic analyses that focus on GDP 
alone. These play a crucial role in quality of life and are often 
significant in economic development. 

The manner in which urban surplus is generated and allocated 
greatly affects cities’ development potential. Not only private 
and public sectors, but also households themselves are part 
of this allocation process. The Cities of tomorrow must not 
only understand the city’s development potential, but also find 
innovative ways of exploiting it and directing it towards shared 
objectives and ownership of strategies. 

Cities have to develop more varied and sensitive indicators 
to better understand problems and the potential inherent 
in the local economy and its resources. They must also 
mobilise stakeholders and citizens in collective and 
participative planning and visioning exercises. Foresight 
and other strategic planning tools can play a key role in this. 

3.4.2. Stimulating job creation, 
entrepreneurship andabroad 
local skill-base 
Cities face major problems in converting or changing their 
development trajectory. It may be wishful thinking to 
expect that a tourism-based service industry will be able 
to replace the manufacturing sector.111 A too strong a focus 
on competitiveness may risk favouring only investments in 
central parts of cities. Business development through direct 
investments may also rely on an external qualified workforce 
and fail to create job opportunities for local people.112 There 
is a specific risk of decoupling the local economy and society 
from the global economy, leaving parts of the population 
untouched by these investments and left out of the economy. 

Using foresight to manage economic transitions 

Economic transition is a key objective of many forwardlooking 
or planning exercises in European cities. Two 
types of economic transition logic can be identified: 

• 
the classic one, which sees cities of the former Western 
industrial basins and of Central and Eastern Europe in 
the process of coping with the recent or less recent 
decline of their industrial capabilities. Many strategies 
exist in this field: cultural investments (Metz, Liege, 
Lens, Bilbao and Emscher Park), industrial consolidation 
(Valenciennes, Turin, Barcelona), transition towards 
innovative tertiary systems (Linz, Belfast, Leeds), 
technological pathways in partnership with universities 
(Manchester, Lausanne), and investment in a performing 
transport infrastructure (Charleroi); 

• 
the post-financial-crisis reflection, which is starting 
to assess the limitations of a strategy solely focused 
on financial and immaterial services, or depending 
on economic factors with little regional or national 
command. In this type of reflection, the nature of 
the required transition is often presented as smart, 
green, sustainable, intelligent, etc. It goes along 
with concepts of residential economy, quality of 
development, open innovation, and technological 
facilities. 
Source: Destrée Institute 

111 
Even if ‘avoiding wishful thinking’ according to which tourism or development of services would allow all cities to develop a new competitive 
model [Calafati, op.cit.]. 

112 
Example of Plaine Commune : Large creation of new jobs but not for the local population (skills mismatch & weak links with local economy). 


Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

The manufacturing sector will remain important for many 
cities, but delocalisation will persist with globalisation, 
and the erosion of the European manufacturing base 
will continue. But service sectors also face delocalisation 
and are dependent on a strong manufacturing base. 
It becomes crucial for cities to adapt their workforce 
to new job opportunities, while also upgrading the 
manufacturing sector as much as possible for a more 
diversified economic base. 

To diversify their economies, cities will have to 
support innovation at all levels, creating a favourable 
entrepreneurial environment while at the same time 
addressing employment, education and social issues to 
avoid marginalisation of vulnerable groups. This cannot be 
done overnight, but is a long-term process, especially when 
moving from a mono-sector economy. 

‘We have to highlight the social position, prestige and 
public image of the people creating jobs. Policies to support 

entrepreneurial activity are part of city governments’ 
responsibilities.’113 

The present economic development model in which 
economic growth does not equate to more jobs raises 
the challenge of not only ensuring a decent life for those 
outside the labour market, but also engaging them in 
society. An increasing number of young people have grown 
up in jobless households. Those who either leave school 
without proper skills or do not find a job when leaving 
school tend to be drawn into a vicious circle of inactivity. 
In Rotterdam, following the impact of the economic crisis, 
the municipality has set up a specific programme to address 
this problem. The basic idea is ‘keep them busy’. Training for 
young people is negotiated with employers in sectors with 
employment opportunities. Those for whom neither work 
nor training opportunities can be found are being pushed 
into community work.114 

Liverpool – linking opportunity and need115 

In 2009 Liverpool adopted a 15-year strategy to become 
‘a thriving international city’ by 2024. All the major public, 
private, and voluntary sector organisations in the city were 
involved in developing the strategy and are committed to 
the city and its people becoming Competitive, Connected, 
Distinctive, Thriving (neighbourhoods) and Healthy. http:// 
www.liverpoolfirst.org.uk/what-we-do/vision-for-liverpool 

To be competitive, the city needs ‘a sustainable business 
sector and strong knowledge economy, supported by a 
workforce drawn from citizens with competitive levels of 
aptitude and skills’. This is a real challenge, as Liverpool 
has ‘major concentrations of worklessness’, and in some 
neighbourhoods, ‘not working’ is a way of life. 

Over the past 10 years, initiatives aimed at giving people 
in need opportunities to enter into education, training 
or employment have, therefore, been introduced. 
Examples include: using empty shop premises to 
provide job and training advice; organising advice 
sessions for parents taking children to kindergarten/ 
nursery; helping ‘problem families’ identified by social 
housing providers; support, advice and funding for 
entrepreneurs and start-ups; and driving a minivan 
down a street, knocking on doors to see if anyone 
wants help. 

Some 10000 residents from deprived neighbourhoods 
have already been helped into employment – but more 
remains to be done and ongoing support (including 
ERDF and ESF) is still required. 

113 
Kayser, Tomasz, Deputy Mayor of Poznañ, Workshop 2 Cities of tomorrow – Visions and models, Brussels, October 2010. 

114 
‘From statistics, we know that many people – if they are out of work for too long – will have additional difficulties in working again. 
[…] We hope that the economy will improve in two to three years, providing employment prospects’. Giuseppe Raaphorst, 
City of Rotterdam, Round table on impact of crisis on cities, URBACT Conference, 1 December 2010. 

115 
Eyres, Martin, contribution to Workshop 2 Cities of tomorrow — Visions and models, Brussels, October 2010. 


3.4.3. Developing social capital 
‘Previously we believed that we especially needed 
investment capital, later we realised that human capital 
was more important, now we understand that the most 
important is the social capital.’116 

The development of social capital is crucial for the 
development of diversified and knowledge-intensive local 
economies. Social capital relates not only to education and 
skills, but also to the ability of people to trust each other, 
to be willing to cooperate, to engage in social networks 
and dialogues, as well as to be pro-active regarding 
challenges and sharing common goals. Social capital is 
vital for the development of entrepreneurship and small 
business creation. 

Social capital is also a necessary ingredient in the 
exploitation of local capacities and the development of the 
very local and more informal parts of the economy. It can 
help raise the quality of local consumption and demand, 
and drive development towards a more knowledgeintensive 
economy. It can also be a driver of social 
innovation, while social innovation can be an important 
tool in fostering social capital. Social capital is, therefore, 
a key factor of city attractiveness. 

3.4.4. Usingtechnologytofostercollective 
intelligenceand innovation 
Information and communication technologies (ICT) and 
specific urban technologies have the potential to bring 
solutions to many of the urban challenges. These range 
from hard technological solutions in the field of urban 
energy efficiency, renewable energy, transport, safety, etc., 
to soft solutions for social interaction, citizens’ participation 
or global management systems for city administrations. 

City managers must avoid the pitfalls of sectoral visions 
built on technology alone. The systemic dimension of 
problems and the high level of future uncertainty demand 
a refined understanding of the challenges and the 
possible technological responses within a wider societal 
context.117 An interesting trend is the use of pre-commercial 
procurement procedures that can help to make public 
procurement more innovative, systemic and holistic.118 
A real challenge lies in engaging people in an active co-
design of technologies in a social context that could result 
in social and technological innovation. 

3.4.5. Linkingtothe global economy – 
cities as hubsfor global networks 
A city is not only a ‘space of place’, but with the rise of 
global interactivity it increasingly becomes a ‘space of 
flows’.119 Cities can be regarded as nodes in global networks 
of multinational firms. Some European cities play more 
prominent roles as hubs. They not only have stronger 
business links to other European and non-European cities, 
but are also positioned higher in the hierarchy of these 
networks in terms of control of decisions and investment 
flows. Through their firms, these cities have the advantage 
of a stronger and more direct connectivity with global 
financial and technological centres.120 

In most cases, a city’s size is an indicator of its hierarchical 
position in these global networks, although smaller cities 
may also be well placed when they are host to headquarters 
of major firms. However, there is a marked difference 
between the Northern and Western parts of Europe and 
the Central and Eastern parts. Companies in Central and 
Eastern Europe tend to have lower hierarchical and less 
central positions in global networks, even if they are based 
in capital cities. This is a structural weakness that leaves 
the host cities more exposed to changes in global demand. 

116 
Kayser, Tomasz, Deputy Mayor of Poznañ, contribution to Workshop 2 Cities of tomorrow — Visions and models, Brussels, October 2010. 

117 
The increasing use of technologies to ensure our security is also a factor of anxiety and does not necessarily address the problem 
of a negative perception of urban safety. Some cities also try to improve the social links between people in order to reinforce solidarity. 
For example, events such as ‘Neighbours’ Days’ allow people to meet each other and then rely more on each other, which contributes 
to a feeling of safety and trust in a given neighbourhood. 

118 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/tl/research/priv_invest/pcp/index_en.htm. 
119 Castells, Manuel, The Informational City,Blackwell Publishers, 1989. 
120 Based on an analysis of the location of the 3000 biggest multinational firms and their subsidiaries by ESPON–FOCI. 



Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

A city’s position in global networks is highly pathdependent 
and often anchored through positive historical 
circumstances, long-term private and public investments, 
location-based skills etc., making them difficult to replicate 
or modify. A key challenge for cities is to understand the 

role their firms play in international networks and how 
their positions may be strengthened. Good connectivity 
is of primary importance for this – connectivity to markets 
and to technological and financial resources, but also 
connectivity to cultural trends. 

A vision of living social labs supporting 
social innovation121 

A shortage of public finances, demographic shrinking, 
etc. will demand innovative and radically new 
approaches to societal problems. Social living labs 
would permit us to simultaneously address multiple 
challenges – e.g. ageing, inclusion, food supply, 
greening of the city – and would transform those most 
concerned from objects to subjects, or from being a part 
of the problem to being a part of the solution. 

Living labs build on four main elements: co-creation, 
exploration, experimentation and evaluation. A living 
social lab would take these steps further, framing them 

in a bigger process involving mobilisation, capacity 
building, visioning and monitoring. A social living lab 
would be a way to develop participative democracy, 
providing a platform where public interest can be 
defined in more concrete ways. It would also support 
the notion of a ‘negotiated city’, permitting negotiation 
between apparently opposing values and vision. 

To function, living social labs require a mobilisation 
of citizens and stakeholders and the opportunity to 
define objectives, shape content and process and be 
part of implementation. It also requires a revised and 
more inclusive vision of the knowledge society and 
the encouragement of knowledge alliances. 


121 
Vision derived from the notion of a ‘Living lab’which can be defined as a ‘user-centred, open-innovation ecosystem, 
often operating in a territorial context (e.g. city, agglomeration, region), in which user-driven innovation is fully 
integrated in the co-creative process of new services, products and societal infrastructures’ 
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/livinglabs/index_en.htm. 


BRNO – Upgrading the international status of the city and its region 
by attracting highly qualified people and activities 

Brno city itself has 370 000 inhabitants, the wider 
metropolitan zone 520 000. Brno is a traditional 
industrial city, but since 1990 it has seen major 
transformation; in 2011, the tertiary sector dominates 
the local economy. Brno also has international status 
potential, given its Central Europe location, its many 
universities and research centres, and its capacity 
to host R&D development. Brno’s challenges are to 
develop its innovative economies and international 
R&D functions and make them sustainable. 

To address these, the city is starting to attract highly 
qualified people through different research and grant 
programmes. In 2002, the South Moravian region 
formulated its Regional Innovation Strategy, with the 

aim of being among the top fifty innovative regions in 
Europe by 2013. ERDF funding represents 58% of the total 
budget. The related action plan stresses the importance 
of cooperation between the city, region and universities. 
The policy has resulted in the creation of a solid network 
of actors, all working towards the same goals. 

Sustainability remains the biggest challenge, as 
research facility infrastructure development is limited, 
and larger urban infrastructure is still lacking (e.g. rail, 
road and air). Attracting people and activities also 
raises important issues for future action: developing an 
integration policy for newcomers, increasing benefits 
for local students and convincing locals about the 
programmes’ long-term benefits. 



Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

3.4.6. Theconnectivitychallenge 
The connectivity of Europe’s cities is a key element in creating 
balanced territorial development. Many European cities benefit 
from good connectivity by air or rail with other major European 
cities, allowing for business day trips with full-day meeting 
possibilities. Such cities have good‘contactability’.122 This is the 
case for most Western European cities and the capital cities of 
Central and Eastern Europe. However, for non-capital cities in 
the latter group there is a low level of contactability with cities 
in other European countries. Rail links are still mainly national, 
and cross-border train-connectivity is low even for relatively 
short distances. A major future challenge for these cities lies 
in increasing contactability in a sustainable way, e.g. with a 
possible focus on high-speed rail rather than air connections, 
especially given the scale and nature of such investment 
beyond the control of individual cities. 

3.5. A polycentric urban Europe with 
balanced territorial development 
The European model is based on a balanced polycentric 
urban structure, which allows the entire European territory to 

develop. Cities play a key role as centres for services, business 
and culture for their surrounding areas. The development 
of cities is key for the viability and development of their 
surrounding rural areas. But cities’ development gives rise to 
several territorial challenges at different geographic scales, 
from the relationship between the cities and their peri-urban 
areas to the relationship between cities and the territorial 
development of the EU as a whole. 

3.5.1. Aharmonious developmentof the city 
with its surroundingregion 
The interplay between urban centres and their surrounding 
regional rural space is a serious challenge, together with the 
resilience and vulnerability of the natural resources in that 
peri-urban space. Large cities need vast hinterlands, and 
conflicts over resources and their use may arise with other 
cities or agricultural users. Ecosystems may come under 
pressure by the over-intensive and weakly regulated use of 
the soil, by demographic or market pressures, e.g. intensive 
agro-food production for a global market rather than for a 
shorter producer–consumer circuit with diversified local 
production. 

A vision of urban development without sprawl123 

To reduce urban sprawl, Cities of tomorrow improve the 
compactness and attractiveness of city centres in terms 
of quality of life, price-affordable housing, and family 
friendliness – encouraging households with young 
children to settle within cites. They provide services and 
infrastructures for public transport, which encourages 
further densification of already dense areas. 

Cities of tomorrow develop polycentric spatial 
patterns to relieve the pressure on their bigger 
central agglomerations. They plan green belts and 

green corridors within cities and in their periphery 
as structuring elements for green mobility (walking 
and cycling lanes). 

Cities of tomorrow implement strong planning 
policies together with supporting measures, such as 
fiscal incentives or land pricing. They develop tools 
for dynamic monitoring of land use, as well as for 
comparative evaluation of land use in other European 
cities and urban areas. This is being prompted by the 
requirement for an integrated land-use plan (including 
Strategic Environmental Assessment, in line with EU 
regulations) to receive European funding. 

122 ESPON–FOCI report, Brussels, 2010.‘Contactability’is defined as the possibility of a single day business trip (by rail, by air or by a combination of 
rail and air) with 6 hours available at destination and within the time windows 6am–10pm and 5am–11pm, under a door-to-door approach. 
123 Thematic sub-group under the Territorial Cohesion and Urban Matters Workgroup, Final Report on Urban and Development 
Sprawl, July 2010. 


Urban sprawl is hard to reverse. However, it may be 
controlled, directed, coordinated and minimised. ‘This is 
especially important in the transition countries that have 
not been able to sufficiently coordinate metropolitan 
growth’.124 

The city and its surrounding region must be analysed in 
terms of density of habitat and workplaces, and these 
densities must be reinforced and well connected to 
transport nodes. In certain cases, up to 80% of people 
working in a city live outside it. In other cases, people living 
outside cities must bring their children to schools in the 
city or go there for health, social or cultural services. It is, 
therefore, meaningless to plan mobility in a city without 
taking into account the mobility patterns of those living 
in the greater urban functional area as well as the flow of 
goods to and from the city. 

The planning and management of public transport at the 
level of functional urban areas involve partnership and 
collaboration between all the local authorities concerned 
and raise specific challenges of cooperation, coordination 
and financing. Many Eastern European cities have very well 
developed metropolitan tramway networks. Certain experts 
point to the renovation and upgrading of these networks 
as a top priority, as they present a unique opportunity to 
develop low-carbon mobility at a large territorial scale. 
But – given the metropolitan scale of these networks and 
the cost of such upgrading – there is a huge governance 
challenge in implementing such a renovation across the 
municipal structures concerned. 

A vision of a sustainable urban inwards growth125 

Form, sustainability, and territories of intervention 

The Cities of tomorrow will stop growing outwards 
and instead grow inwards in various forms of redensification. 
There will be clustered cities with 
multiple centres and various forms of neighbourhoods. 
Sustainability needs re-densification; densification 
needs social agreements; social agreements need social 
innovation. Different social classes and generations have 
to be willing to live together again – on an even denser 
territory. Old neighbourhoods need to be adapted 
for new families, for multiple generations and for an 
increasingly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. 

Post-war mass housing settlements and early suburban 
detached house neighbourhoods are pre-destined 
for re-densification. The monotonous and monofunctional 
satellite towns will undergo an urbanisation 
process with a more colourful, socially mixed and 
multi-functional outcome. The early areas of suburban 

detached houses are demographically old-aged, and 
the change from the old generation to the next one 
is a huge opportunity for such interventions. Later, 
the huge suburban fields of the 1990s will be ready 
for re-appropriation and re-densification. 

New Public Space and New Social Institutions: 
Catalysts of social invention and renewal 

Public spaces and new social institutions will form 
one of the pillars of this process. These spaces and 
institutions should address the current population as 
well as the new settlers: public domains to get to know 
each other and platforms for exchange and respect. 
Neighbourhood-adapted forms of education and 
knowledge sharing are the second pillar of this social 
cohesion strategy. New forms of district libraries (e.g. 
IDEA stores London, UK), new forms of schools (e.g. 
Westminster Academy, London) will help to improve 
integration of low-skilled and low-educated people. In 
shrinking areas, such projects and spaces can serve as a 
social glue (e.g. Open Air Library, Magdeburg, Germany). 

124 Gorzelak, Grzegorz, Warsaw University, Cities of tomorrow – Contributions from experts, Brussels 2010. 
125 Rettich, Stefan, Workshop 3 Cities of tomorrow – How to make it happen ? Brussels, December 2010. 


Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

Planning, Participation and Communication 

Planning will be an open and flexible process, where 
all stakeholders and citizens have the same rights and 
importance. Existing users and economic and social 
networks will play a major role in this public debate 
about the future. New forms of real participation will be 
developed. There will be formats without thresholds, 
where all people, including those with lower education 
standards, feel comfortable and are able to participate. 
Communication, not only verbal, will play a major role in 
this contemporary and new type of planning. Temporary 
interventions and testing fields of future solutions will be 
an important communication tool with the broader public. 

Temporality 

Can we afford to leave buildings abandoned in 
overcrowded cities for reasons of speculation? And 
what shall we do with abandoned buildings in areas 
with shrinking population? In both cases temporary use 
is a solution. In the first, the building stock can be used 
more efficiently, and entrepreneurs and creative people 
might profit from temporarily reduced rents while the 

owners can profit from the recognition of a building 
in use. In the second case, temporality can be used 
as a strategy to direct and to focus developments of 
revitalisation on certain areas. In both cases, temporary 
use is a basis for new forms of social cohesion and local 
economic networks. 

A new relationship between Town and Country 

In the last century the relationship between town and 
country became imbalanced. The countryside was 
mainly seen as a potential site for suburbanisation and 
industrial agriculture. With sustainable development, 
this relationship could change: the wide landscape 
areas offer space for windmills and biomass production; 
the countryside, once an essential supplier of food, 
could become a green supplier of energy. Regional 
production of food will also come into vogue again, 
with rising prices for fuel and transportation. Bio-food 
will first be produced for public facilities of the cities 
like schools, kindergartens, municipal canteens, etc. and 
later most of the city food will once more be regional. 

Source: Rettich, Stefan, op.cit. 

3.5.2. Promoting the diversity 
and authenticityof cities 
Cities’ attractiveness is as much about the quality of life they 
offer as their competitiveness. Cities compete not only to 
attract enterprises but also to attract talent. While vibrant 
cities in the core zones of the European economy attract 
many migrants from within and beyond national borders, 
peripheral cities have modest or non-existent inflows from 
other regions and countries. It is naturally a key priority for 
peripheral cities to provide favourable conditions that keep 
economically active inhabitants in the region.126 

To compete, cities brand themselves as ‘green’, ‘creative’ 
or ‘cultural’ cities. Attractiveness builds on the quality of 
education, cultural and aesthetic assets, good sport and 
leisure opportunities, environmental assets and cleanliness 
of air and water, as well as social life and urban safety. 

Attractiveness is a result of sustainable and integrated 
urban development: sound urban planning; sustainable 
urban transport; all-age-friendly policies; affordable 
housing; good public services, clean air, clean water, 
green spaces, etc. A functional integrated approach to 
urban development will also have to take into account all 

126 Second ‘State of European Cities Report’, pp. 15–16. 

57 



aspects of life. For example, urban public transport has 
to serve leisure journeys as well as work commutes, and 
the adaptation of transport infrastructures to future age 
patterns can generate new services for an active elderly 
class. 

An attractive city has a creativity that reaches beyond 
narrow cultural aspects to the wider processes of creative 
action, social innovation, organisational learning, and the 
building of ‘urban intelligence’. Such processes can be 
applied to economic activity, public governance, social 
structures and cultural expression.127 

There is no standard recipe for creating attractiveness. 
The large diversity among cities is an asset for Europe and 
allows cities to shape their own unique attractiveness. 

Cities have to build on their past to prepare the future. 
Some cities build on their specific traditions of production, 
on their architectural or cultural heritage as well as on 
their local and regional knowledge base. The specific 
attractiveness of a given city has to be seen in the context 
of a forward-looking scenario as an element of a broader 
urban transition. 

The cities that perform best in terms of attractiveness 
are those on a rising development path. They have more 
financial resources and more space to manage public and 
private creative investments that go beyond basic needs. 
However, there are also successful examples of cities where 
the transformation of former brownfield sites into cultural 
and creative neighbourhoods and the renovation of city 
centres have balanced negative developments. 

127 Ravetz, Joe, Cities of tomorrow – Contributions from experts, Brussels 2010. 


Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

FLORENCE – Private actors as motors in revitalising the local economy 
and manufacturing traditions based on cultural heritage 

Florence has 368 901 inhabitants (2009 data) and sits at the 
centre of a metropolitan area of 618 990. Florence is known 
for tourism as well as its manufacturing and arts and crafts 
activities, notably art restoration. Nevertheless, there are 
signs of a decline in the city’s economic and urban stability: 
fewer tourists and manufacturing plants, more empty 
buildings and growing competition from other cultural 
cities in Italy and Europe. The city’s main challenge is, 
therefore, to re-establish itself on the international stage. 

The challenge is already being taken up by Confindustra, 
the trade union confederation of Italian commercial and 

industrial enterprises, backed by the CNA association 
representing local SMEs. The consortium organised the 
nine-day Florens2010 – International Week on Cultural 
Heritage and Landscape in November 2010, offering 
cultural events, exhibitions, fairs and a conference to the 
90 000 who visited. The strategy was to promote Florence 
as a new capital of cultural heritage restoration. 

This strategy is in line with the urban development strategy 
recently adopted by Florence, which includes plans to 
create an innovative economic cluster, the ‘Technological 
District on Cultural Heritage’. 



3.6. Towards a more holistic model 
of sustainable city development 
3.6.1. Towardsaholistic,integrated model 
of sustainable urban development 
Our cities are facing a series of challenges that – taken 
separately – are demanding in their own right. Diversity 
needs to be turned into a positive driver for innovation 
and attractiveness, supporting rather than undermining 
cohesion. Cities need to adapt their economic strategies 
and social services to an ageing population. 

To develop a green, healthy and attractive city, a holistic 
approach to environmental and energy-related issues 
needs to be adopted. Pollution and unsustainable use of 
natural resources need to be reduced, and mobility has 
to be made sustainable, inclusive and healthy. The open 
public space needs to be revalorised. Cities have to manage 
transitions towards viable local economies that are linked 
to the global economy and to global hubs of excellence and 
innovation, developing resilient, inclusive and knowledgebased 
economies. They have to stimulate job creation and 
support a broad local skill-base. 

Cities also have to develop in harmony with their 
surrounding regions and play their part as motors of 
regional growth, favouring a polycentric urban Europe with 
balanced territorial development. They must safeguard their 
identity and unique characteristics and play different roles 
in cooperation networks over broader territories as well as 
in the global economy. 

Cities have to move towards a more holistic model of 
sustainable city development, in which they overcome 
seemingly conflicting and contradictory objectives. 
Economic growth has to be reconciled with the sustainable 
use of natural resources, global competitiveness must be 
inclusive and favour a local economy, and attractiveness to 
the global social and economic elite must not exclude lessfavoured 
groups. 

In essence, to meet the challenges of tomorrow, cities need to 
adopt an integrated approach to planning and development, 
integrating the social, economic, environmental and territorial 
dimensions of urban development. 

3.6.2. Overcomingconflicts andcontradictions 
There are obvious contradictions between social, economic 
and environmental models of development. Economic 
development does not always permeate into social 
progress in a positive fashion, and there are an increasing 
number of situations where there is a decoupling of social 
and economic development. For example, the economic 
dynamics of some companies may contrast with the social 
deprivation of the area where these companies are settled. 
Cities must remain engines for economic growth and 
participate in world competition while maintaining social 
cohesion within their territories.128 

The green development model of a balanced and healthy 
society is contradictory to an economic growth model 
based on competitiveness and continued economic growth. 

Environmental and social concerns do not always go hand 
in hand. Tensions may occur in cities where environmental 
objectives are higher on the political agenda than social 
ones. Eco-neighbourhoods and green technologies may, for 
instance, be unaffordable to those most exposed to energy 
poverty. Social cohesion policies do not necessarily fall in 
line with environmental policies. 

There are also contradictions between ambitions, visions 
and objectives at different territorial scales and between 
neighbouring territories. If neighbourhood problems 
are addressed only at neighbourhood level, the problem 
at hand may be moved on to another part of the city or 
beyond it. If competition between nearby cities is too 
strong there may be no clear winner and partial losers 
instead. Socially-oriented development models may also 
compete with and be contradictory to technology-oriented 
models. 

128 Jacquier, Claude, Research Director, CNRS, introductory note to the Conference on Multilevel Urban Governance, 
Belgian Presidency of the European Union, Liege, 1–2 December 2010. 


Cities of tomorrow -Challenges, visions, ways forward 

Competing societal visions?129 

