Maturation of the concept of sustainable urban development in the European Union
Sustainable urban development is a process of improving the quality of life for city residents. Quality of life in a city has various shades. These include, for example, air quality, noise levels, the level of accessibility to green areas, or the availability of ecological forms of transport. Generally, the management of sustainable urban development is based on four pillars:
• sustainable urban land management
• sustainable urban transport
• sustainable urban construction
• sustainable urban design.
The threats caused by civilizational development, the progressing process of urbanization, and changes in the lifestyles of urban communities within the European Union were first comprehensively addressed in 1990 in the Green Paper on the Urban Environment, while simultaneously pointing to the need to take a series of actions based on mutual cooperation and the integration of environmental strategies of individual member states. The urgency of the problem was emphasized by the establishment of the EU Expert Group on the Urban Environment in 1991. The first major result of the Group’s work was the launch of the Sustainable Cities Project, scheduled for implementation between 1993 and 1996. The main goal of the project was to promote the idea of sustainable development in European cities. Local government authorities and the declarations they established played a significant role in disseminating the ideas and good practices of sustainable urban development. Of particular importance here are the European Conferences on Sustainable Cities and Towns.
The first of these, “Car-Free Cities,” took place in March 1994 in Amsterdam. The conference concluded with the founding of the European Car-Free Cities Club, which was joined by 35 cities at the time. The Charter of European Car-Free Cities was also adopted, specifying the main goals of a city functioning in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. In the Charter, we read, among other things: “We, the undersigned, agree that for the sake of environmental health (…), in accordance with the standards of the World Health Organization, adopted by the European Commission, and the resolution of Agenda 21, Art. 7, concerning human settlements, and Art. 28, concerning transport links, keeping in mind the sustainability of mobility, improvement of traffic safety, more efficient use of energy, and reduction of harmful emissions, which cause, among other things, the formation of photochemical smog and the greenhouse effect, and due to the need to guarantee social and economic development for urbanized areas, we must support the reduction of the use of passenger cars and trucks in urbanized areas and promote means of transport that are less burdensome to the natural environment. (…) We intend to achieve this through:
a) promotion of collective public transport, bicycle use, walking, carpooling; to this end, it is necessary to:
• convince individual users through appropriate development of ecological education
• create the development of communication networks
• convince employers to offer more economical ways of transporting their employees
• convince society to change their travel habits
b) promotion of eco-friendly delivery management within the city (Citylogistics),
c) establishment of a dialogue platform between various participants of urban life.
In the same year, another conference dedicated to the issues of shaping sustainable urban development took place (in May, in Aalborg), which concluded with the adoption of the Aalborg Charter. This was the first Conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns, where a commitment was made to take action towards local sustainable development and European local authorities were called upon to start the Local Agenda 21 process. The Aalborg Charter also obliged the local authorities that signed it to establish systems and procedures for monitoring and reporting on the progress made.