IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v10y2021i4p356-d527839.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards Sustainable Urbanization. Learning from What’s Out There

Author

Listed:
  • Alys Solly

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional, Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125 Turin, Italy)

  • Erblin Berisha

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional, Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125 Turin, Italy)

  • Giancarlo Cotella

    (Interuniversity Department of Regional, Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125 Turin, Italy)

Abstract

The incremental recognition of the importance of land as a finite resource has led to the adoption and implementation of an increasing number of sustainable land use practices in European cities and regions. This paper reflects on these experiences, building on the evidence collected in the framework of the ESPON SUPER pan-European research project. In particular, the authors look at the project’s database, which includes 235 examples of sustainable urbanization interventions gathered from all around Europe. In doing so, they reflect on the outcomes of these interventions, focusing on both their scope and objectives and the types of instruments that were adopted in their implementation. The objective of this contribution is to critically analyze the rich set of practices collected throughout the project and to provide guidance for decision and policy makers aiming at promoting a more sustainable use of land. In this light, it suggests a number of recommendations and warnings, bearing in mind that no “right instruments” or “right targets” exist that could prove successful for all European cities and regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Alys Solly & Erblin Berisha & Giancarlo Cotella, 2021. "Towards Sustainable Urbanization. Learning from What’s Out There," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-23, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:356-:d:527839
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/356/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/356/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coline Perrin & Camille Clément & Romain Melot & Brigitte Nougarèdes, 2020. "Preserving Farmland on the Urban Fringe: A Literature Review on Land Policies in Developed Countries," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-20, July.
    2. Lena Ali & Annegret Haase & Stefan Heiland, 2020. "Gentrification through Green Regeneration? Analyzing the Interaction between Inner-City Green Space Development and Neighborhood Change in the Context of Regrowth: The Case of Lene-Voigt-Park in Leipz," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24, January.
    3. Scott D. Campbell, 2016. "The Planner's Triangle Revisited: Sustainability and the Evolution of a Planning Ideal That Can't Stand Still," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 82(4), pages 388-397, October.
    4. Lucie Greyl & Hali Healy & Emanuele Leonardi & Leah Temper, 2012. "Stop that train! Ideological conflict and the TAV," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2012(2), pages 193-218.
    5. Berli, Jan, 2018. "Competition in local land use planning?," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 27-56, March.
    6. Simone Tulumello & Giancarlo Cotella & Frank Othengrafen, 2020. "Spatial planning and territorial governance in Southern Europe between economic crisis and austerity policies," International Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 72-87, January.
    7. Jacopo Scudellari & Luca Staricco & Elisabetta Vitale Brovarone, 2020. "Implementing the Supermanzana approach in Barcelona. Critical issues at local and urban level," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 675-696, November.
    8. Harriet Bulkeley, 2006. "Urban Sustainability: Learning from Best Practice?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(6), pages 1029-1044, June.
    9. Yiannis Panagopoulos & Elias Dimitriou, 2020. "A Large-Scale Nature-Based Solution in Agriculture for Sustainable Water Management: The Lake Karla Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-22, August.
    10. Erblin Berisha & Giancarlo Cotella & Umberto Janin Rivolin & Alys Solly, 2021. "Spatial governance and planning systems in the public control of spatial development: a European typology," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 181-200, January.
    11. Alys Solly & Erblin Berisha & Giancarlo Cotella & Umberto Janin Rivolin, 2020. "How Sustainable Are Land Use Tools? A Europe-Wide Typological Investigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-21, February.
    12. Alexander Paulsson, 2020. "The city that the metro system built: Urban transformations and modalities of integrated planning in Stockholm," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(14), pages 2936-2955, November.
    13. Christopher J. Koroneos & Dimitri Rokos, 2012. "Sustainable and Integrated Development—A Critical Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-13, January.
    14. Elisabetta Vitale Brovarone & Giancarlo Cotella, 2020. "Improving Rural Accessibility: A Multilayer Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-20, April.
    15. Marta Bottero & Caterina Caprioli & Giancarlo Cotella & Marco Santangelo, 2019. "Sustainable Cities: A Reflection on Potentialities and Limits based on Existing Eco-Districts in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-22, October.
    16. Federica Rotondo & Francesca Abastante & Giancarlo Cotella & Isabella Maria Lami, 2020. "Questioning Low-Carbon Transition Governance: A Comparative Analysis of European Case Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-17, December.
    17. Tønnesen, Anders & Krogstad, Julie Runde & Christiansen, Petter & Isaksson, Karolina, 2019. "National goals and tools to fulfil them: A study of opportunities and pitfalls in Norwegian metagovernance of urban mobility," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 35-44.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vincent Wretling & Berit Balfors, 2021. "Are Local Authorities Building Their Capacity to Plan for Reduced Climate Impact? A Longitudinal Analysis of Swedish Comprehensive Plans," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, June.
    2. Maciej Nowak & Giancarlo Cotella & Przemysław Śleszyński, 2021. "The Legal, Administrative, and Governance Frameworks of Spatial Policy, Planning, and Land Use: Interdependencies, Barriers, and Directions of Change," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-9, October.
    3. Rubina Canesi, 2022. "Urban Policy Sustainability through a Value-Added Densification Tool: The Case of the South Boston Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-12, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Federica Rotondo & Francesca Abastante & Giancarlo Cotella & Isabella Maria Lami, 2020. "Questioning Low-Carbon Transition Governance: A Comparative Analysis of European Case Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Vitale Brovarone, Elisabetta & Staricco, Luca & Verlinghieri, Ersilia, 2023. "Whose is this street? Actors and conflicts in the governance of pedestrianisation processes," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Maciej Nowak & Giancarlo Cotella & Przemysław Śleszyński, 2021. "The Legal, Administrative, and Governance Frameworks of Spatial Policy, Planning, and Land Use: Interdependencies, Barriers, and Directions of Change," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-9, October.
    4. Eda Ustaoglu & Chris Jacobs-Crisioni, 2022. "What Drives Residential Land Expansion and Densification? An Analysis of Growing and Shrinking Regions," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-27, September.
    5. Vassilios Pisinaras & Frank Herrmann & Andreas Panagopoulos & Evangelos Tziritis & Ian McNamara & Frank Wendland, 2023. "Fully Distributed Water Balance Modelling in Large Agricultural Areas—The Pinios River Basin (Greece) Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-29, February.
    6. Mariusz J. Ligarski & Tomasz Owczarek, 2024. "Preparing Quality of Life Surveys Versus Using Information for Sustainable Development: The Example of Polish Cities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 765-782, July.
    7. Kassis, Grâce & Bertrand, Nathalie, 2022. "Institutional changes in farmland governance emerging from a collective land preservation procedure upholding local food projects: Evidence from a French case study," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    8. Olsen, Jonathan R. & Thornton, Lukar & Tregonning, Grant & Mitchell, Richard, 2022. "Nationwide equity assessment of the 20-min neighbourhood in the scottish context: A socio-spatial proximity analysis of residential locations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    9. Heather Lovell, 2009. "The Role of Individuals in Policy Change: The Case of UK Low-Energy Housing," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 27(3), pages 491-511, June.
    10. Liu, Yansui & Zhou, Yang, 2021. "Territory spatial planning and national governance system in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    11. Armands Auzins & Uchendu Eugene Chigbu, 2021. "Values-Led Planning Approach in Spatial Development: A Methodology," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-19, April.
    12. Akpan, Uduak & Morimoto, Risako, 2022. "An application of Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) to the prioritization of rural roads to improve rural accessibility in Nigeria," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PB).
    13. Egla Mansi & Eglantina Hysa & Mirela Panait & Marian Catalin Voica, 2020. "Poverty—A Challenge for Economic Development? Evidences from Western Balkan Countries and the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-24, September.
    14. Ratka ÄŒolić & Ä orÄ‘e Milić & Jasna Petrić & NataÅ¡a ÄŒolić, 2022. "Institutional capacity development within the national urban policy formation process – Participants’ views," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 69-89, February.
    15. Zaman, Khalid & Moemen, Mitwali Abd-el., 2017. "Energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and economic development: Evaluating alternative and plausible environmental hypothesis for sustainable growth," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1119-1130.
    16. Milan Daus & Katharina Koberger & Kaan Koca & Felix Beckers & Jorge Encinas Fernández & Barbara Weisbrod & Daniel Dietrich & Sabine Ulrike Gerbersdorf & Rüdiger Glaser & Stefan Haun & Hilmar Hofmann &, 2021. "Interdisciplinary Reservoir Management—A Tool for Sustainable Water Resources Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-21, April.
    17. Anders Blok & Robin Tschötschel, 2016. "World port cities as cosmopolitan risk community: Mapping urban climate policy experiments in Europe and East Asia," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(4), pages 717-736, June.
    18. Ruiying Liu, 2022. "Long-Term Development Perspectives in the Slow Crisis of Shrinkage: Strategies of Coping and Exiting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-30, August.
    19. Caprioli, Caterina & Bottero, Marta, 2021. "Addressing complex challenges in transformations and planning: A fuzzy spatial multicriteria analysis for identifying suitable locations for urban infrastructures," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    20. Donghui Lv & Ruru Wang & Yu Zhang, 2021. "Sustainability Assessment Based on Integrating EKC with Decoupling: Empirical Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-22, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:356-:d:527839. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.