The chair Background

The Urban Agenda for the EU & the New Leipzig Charter

Although the EU has not specific competences on urban and regional planning, its role in promoting sustainable urban development and influencing urban policies is well recognized and has conveyed to the definition of the Urban Agenda for the EU (2016) as an integrated and coordinated approach to deal with the urban dimension of EU and national policies and legislation. It focuses on concrete priority themes within dedicated partnerships in the effort to improve the quality of life in urban areas. Based on the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the Urban Agenda for the EU focuses on the three pillars of EU policymaking and implementation: better regulation, better funding and better knowledge. Regional Design methodologies provide a useful tool for approaching the issues of the Urban Agenda with an integrated and cross-sectoral approach.

However, since 2020 the general framework in which the Urban Agenda has been conceived has faced important challenges that have led the EU to focus on new challenges, as defined in the New Leipzig Charter of 2020, conceived during the Sars-Covid19 Pandemic.

The EUA was established by the Pact of Amsterdam in 2016, building on the basic idea of the 2007 Leipzig Charter that all areas of urban policy must be coordinated in a multi-level and multi-stakeholder approach to an integrated and sustainable urban development.

Nevertheless, nowadays global challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, resource scarcity, migration movements, demographic change, digital divide, lack of privacy, security issues, market dependencies, pandemics and rapidly changing economies intensify disparities on towns and cities throughout Europe.

These increasingly complex challenges in Urban Areas have been addressed by the New Leipzig Charter of 2020 entitled “The transformative power of cities for the common good”, that provides a policy framework to deliver global and European agreements such as the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, New Urban Agenda (UN-Habitat 2022) and the European Green Deal at urban level.

The New Leipzig Charter recognises the role of cities in promoting transformative action, and calls on those responsible to activate, bundle and promote the transformative powers of neighbourhoods, local authorities and regions. To be able to do so, all those who shape towns and cities for the common good need political support, reliable administrative action and sufficient resources. The New Leipzig Charter, therefore, emphasises the need for Cities to be able to respond flexibly and take anticipatory action to safeguard and enhance quality of life to ensure that no one is left behind. In order to implement the EUA, Local Authorities are asked to cooperate with local communities, civil society, businesses and knowledge institutions for the pursuit of the common good in order to face current challenges within three main domains:

1) the green city: climate-neutral energy supply, renewable resources, carbon-neutral buildings, regeneration of ecosystems, efficient, carbon-neutral, safe and multi-modal urban transport

2) the just city: equal opportunities and environmental justice for all, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, age or origin, leaving no one behind

3) the productive city: digital, service-oriented low-carbon economy, built on a knowledge-based society, cultural industries, small-scale businesses, low-emission-manufacturing and urban agriculture