Links
ACRONYM | TITLE PROJECT WEBSITE | SUMMARY |
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BUGS | Benefits of urban green space
Link 1 Link 2 | The inter-related issues of urban sprawl, traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution are major socio-economic problems faced by most European cities. The main objective of BUGS is to develop an integrated methodology to assess the role of green space in alleviating the adverse effects of urbanisation. Addressing the impact of green areas on such diverse areas as traffic flows and emissions, air quality, microclimate, noise, accessibility, economic efficiency, and social well-being, this methodology will allow to deduce a set of guidelines regarding the use of green space as a design tool for urban planning, at scales ranging from a street canyon or a park to an entire urban region. |
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CAST | Process and software tools for analysis and simulation of development of cities into the future
Link | The purpose of City Analysis Simulation Tool (CAST) is to help improve the quality of urban life in the future. CAST will be developed on the basis of principles of complexity and in the domain of virtual reality. The complex model of the city will emerge without explicit programming from the interaction of city components governed by simple rules applied on a component level. CAST will enable the model to simulate a scenario of changes over a number of years, showing the anatomy and physiology of the city in the future. |
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ENTRUST | Empowering Neighbourhoods Through Recourse of Urban Synergies with Trades
Link | Across Europe, cities face the challenge of deprived mixed function neighbourhoods in recession, social problems of disadvantaged residents intertwining with the economic difficulties of declining businesses. |
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GREENSCOM | Communicating urban grow and green: Assessment of planning concepts and policy instruments for a sustainable development of the urban landscape
Link | The interaction of urban development and the conservation of green areas is often perceived as a competition between growth and green. However, experiences show that a spatial structure of multifunctional urban green areas may contribute significantly to sustainable economic and ecological development and to the quality of urban life. |
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GREENSPACE | The contribution of urban green-space to quality of life
Link | The GREENSPACE Project will describe and quantify the benefits that people attach to different types of green space. It will investigate the various functions (e.g. recreation, social interaction, heritage, ecological) of greenspace and other considerations such as equity or conflicts of use. |
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PASTILLE | Promoting Action for Sustainability Through Indicators at the Local Level in Europe
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The Pastille project ran from March 2000 to September 2002 with the following key aims:
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URGE | Development of urban green spaces to improve the quality of life in cities and urban regions
Link 1 Link 2 | Objectives The aim of the URGE project is to improve the provision of cities with green spaces, both qualitatively and quantitatively, thus enhancing the quality of life of the urban population and contributing to the sustainable development of European cities. One major objective is to increase the available knowledge of the complex interactions between nature, economy and social systems in urban environments, considering this as a premise to the development of modern strategies for the design and management of urban landscapes. |
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RUROS | Rediscovering the urban realm and green spaces
Link | There is currently strong public interest in the quality of open urban spaces as it is acknowledged that they can contribute to the quality of life within cities, or contrarily enhance isolation and social exclusion. This relates to the physical (i.e. microclimate, thermal, visual and audible comfort, urban morphology, etc.) as well as social environment. Currently, there are no studies available where the user has been thoroughly involved in evaluations of the microclimate and comfort conditions in the real world setting. Although it is acknowledged that microclimate is a very important parameter for comfort, we are not aware of the degree of such influence, as well as other parameters that may be involved. |
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GREENCLUSTER | Clustering of five ongoing research projects on green space in urban areas
| BUGS, GEENSCOM, GEENSPACE, RUOS, URGE |
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DEMOS | Democratic Participation in Urban Governance
Link | The Demos project aims to increase and enhance citizen participation in local government through innovative pilot projects and action research across eight European cities. The Demos project, co-funded by the European Commission, links eight city councils in seven countries with research organisations across Europe in innovation on citizen participation in local government. Demos is responding not only to common concerns about citizen apathy and mistrust of government but also to many positive opportunities which exist to revitalise local democracy. |
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DISCUS | Developing Institutional and Social Capacities for Urban Sustainability
Link | The main goal of the DISCUS research is to understand what are the factors and conditions which can lead to effective urban governance and decision making for sustainable development. Thus, specific attention is given to the analysis of the interaction process between institutional development in local government, and social capital formation in civil society. |
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LASALA LASALA-ONLINE | Eco-efficient urban management and new models of urban governance: the evaluation of LA21 in European local authorities through 'concerted self assessment. Local agenda 21 self-assessment for local authorities on-line'
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Between September 2000 and March 2001, more than 150 local authorities across Europe carried out a tele-guided, concerted self-assessment of their Local Agenda 21 in the scope of the European project "Local Authorities Self-Assessment of Local Agenda (LASALA)". The LASALA research project aimed to register the progress made in the areas of "eco-efficient urban management" and "new schemes of urban governance" brought about through Local Agenda 21. An innovative technique of Tele-guided concerted self-assessment utilising web-based resources and a virtual training centre were at the heart of the project. |
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EOPADEV | Developing new deision-making tools to promote the sustainable development in European cities based on eco-industrial park strategy
Link | The sustainable development is an European strategy to promote the competitiveness and growth, but preserving natural resources and improving quality of life conditions. The European objectives require efforts oriented to develop tools and management systems involving industry, administration and citizens. The ECOPADEV project is focused in developing decision-making tools for local authorities to improve town planning and local living conditions. Local authorities are an important catalyst to achieve sustainable development objectives, but in order to facilitate the application and suitability of these tools, the project will use an approach through Eco-industrial parks development in cities, as a potential strategy to join industry, citizens and administration efforts, integrating environmental socio-economic aspects. |
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IANUS | Indicator system to assess new urban services. Improving decision making through evaluation.
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The overall aim of the IANUS project is to improve municipal decision making in relation to public investment in buildings and services. The main concept is to improve the future by learning from the past. The specific objective is to develop a methodology to enable evaluation of the performance of various types of public buildings and related services.
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FISUS | Formal Indicators of Social Urban sustainability
Link | The focus of FISUS is the form of urban public space. More in detail, FISUS investigates formal characteristics of urban public spaces, how they affect the quantity and the kind of human activities taking place in them, how they achieve this, and to what extent all this is related with the quality of life at the local level. |
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TOOLSUST | The involvement of stakeholders to develop and implement tools for sustainable households in the city of tomorrow
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In this project we take a look at the environmental situation in five European cities, and asses how the households can contribute to improve the present situation. The potential for change will be analysed in both a short- and long-term perspective. The main innovative aspects of the project, is the development of tools for a sustainable development of consumption, and the involvement of stakeholders in this process: identifying goals, develop and test various tools for sustainable consumption and the implementation of these tools in everyday life. |
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INTERACT | Integrated urban governance for City of Tomorrow
Link | How exactly are we to go about implementing a comprehensive, integrated strategic plan involving a whole range of public and private sector partners? What methods, procedures, structures and ways of working are available to us to make our development project a reality? These are the questions facing the 13 European cities committed to the INTERACT project. |
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PEGASUS | Planning, Environment, Governance and Sustainability
Link | The main objective of the PEGASUS project is to assess the potential applicability of the Dutch ?Spatial Development and Environment" (ROM) approach to other urban areas across Europe. ROM has been developed and tested in several pilot projects across The Netherlands in the last few years. All of them concerned with urban policies and new methods of urban governance, the project partners in PEGASUS will make use in their territories of the experiences gained from the Dutch ROM-Rijnmond project. |
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NEHOM | Evaluating housing and neighbourhood initiatives to improve the quality of life of deprived urban neighbourhoods and assessing their transferability across Europe
Link | Problems to be solved: Increasing social exclusion, affecting 15-20% of the population in major European cities and concentrated in segregated housing neighbourhoods, threatens the quality of urban life. "The high incidence and spatial concentration of exclusion and deprivation in many cities create scope for co-operation between Member States on policies and measures that promote inclusion in an urban context. The different approaches taken in different places provide a wealth of experience which action at EU level can help to evaluate and share."(CEC-COM(98)605 final). However, comparative studies assessing the transferability of innovative and effective neighbourhood management and housing initiatives are absent from research to date. |
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URBS PANDENS | Urban Sprawl: European Patterns, Environmental Degradation and Sustainable Development
Link | Urban sprawl is one of the most important types of land-use changes in Europe. It increasingly diminishes the quality of life in Europe and brings forth major impacts on the environment (e.g. via surface sealing, emissions by transport, or ecosystem fragmentation), the social structure of an area (e.g. via segregation, lifestyle changes, or neglecting urban centres) and the economy (e.g. via distributed production, land prices, or issues of scale). |
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PLUS | Participation, leadership and urban sustainability
Link | Quality of life in the towns and cities of Europe depends to a considerable extent on the quality of urban governance, and policy makers at all levels of government now understand the need for better sustainable approach to urban development. In 1998, the European Commission's framework document Sustainable Urban Development in the European Union, analysing the socio-economic and environmental challenges facing European urban areas, advocated both for improvement in urban governance with citizens' participation and improvement in policies linked to the urban environment. |
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RECOURSE | Research and Education Centre for Urban Socio-Economic Development
Link | 1st International Social Geography Workshop THE QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE AND THE RESIDENTIAL ATTRACTIVENESS OF CITIES. Gdansk - Gdynia, Poland, 11-13 September 2003 |
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SUT-GOVERNANCE | Sustainable urban tourism: involving local agents and partnerships for new orms of governance
Link | Problems to be tackled: Sustainable urban tourism requires attention to varied elements, including (a) maintaining physical heritage in the context of living, developing cities; (b) allowing maximum access to available infrastructure, tourist sites, parks, and other green spaces; (c) strengthening the cultural and social viability of local community; (d) balancing interests of residents and visitors; (e) economic viability (f) minimizing adverse ecological impacts on sites from transportation, and (g) unsustainable consumption patterns. |
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UGIS | Urban development programme, urban governance, social inclusion and urban sustainability
| Problems to be solved: During the last decade all over Europe programmes have been established with a view to combat urban problems and/or to stimulate urban dynamics. These programmes have been set up in a new policy-making context, that of urban governance, the development of which they have often stimulated. Three problems will be addressed in this project. What are the effects of urban development programmes on social inclusion and urban sustainability? How did certain forms of urban governance shape these programmes, their definition, their implementation and their successes and failures? How has the presence of these programmes changed urban governance or even stimulated forms of urban governance (the feedback loop). |
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URBEST | Urban best pratices
Link | The need to foster a better communication flow on innovative projects related to urban issues to the large public in Europe and favour the participation of the citizens to the debate on the choices in this field has been adopted in a project, URBEST (Urban Best Practices), financed by the EU which sees the participation of Eurada together with other partners. |
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SURE | A Time-Oriented model for Sustainable Urban Regeneration
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SURE is a research project under the EU V Framework Programme (DG Research). SURE will analyse urban regeneration problems in a time-space perspective, which means not using only the traditional economic and spatial indicators, but trying to enrich the analysis with time related aspects. SURE will develop a time oriented model for urban regeneration, a chronographic instrument for the analysis and interpretation of local contexts (TOOL). |
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LUDA | Improving the Quality of Life in Large Urban Distressed Areas
Link | Problems to be solved: Most European cities have large urban areas suffering environmental, economical and social distress that results in a high level of political pressure to make rapid improvements to the quality of life. Especially in the take-off phase of urban rehabilitation, this often leads to an uneconomic use of resources and it narrows options for development. It contrasts with the need for far-sighted strategic planning and development addressing three main challenges of these areas: their large dimension, the complexity of problems and the uncertainty of their future development. LUDA seeks to tackle this challenge by providing tools and methods for a more strategic approach towards urban rehabilitation, and by supporting cities in initiating and managing such an approach in its early stages. |
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OSCAR | Optimised Expert System for Conducting Environmental Assessment of Urban Road Traffic
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Project Abstract: OSCAR is a European project that addresses the major problem of road traffic congestion and the resulting air pollution in urban areas. The quality of life of the citizen is expected to diminish in several ways as a result of the growth in urban traffic, including increased journey times, deterioration in air quality and health of vulnerable groups, and decreased economic efficiency of industry and business. In terms of air quality it is recognised that limit values for NO2 and PM10 will be difficult to meet in many European urban areas. Current environmental assessment models, however, cannot adequately address complex traffic situations and micro-scale dispersion patterns observed in urban streets. |
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PETUS | Practical Evaluation Tools for Urban Sustainability
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'providing guidance to public and private organisations to select the most suitable sustainable project for a unique situation' The project will provide a framework of practical evaluation tools that can be used to analyse sustainability and urban infrastructure projects. The tool will assess projects against a set of standard criteria and provide information to look at the potential for transferring them to other areas of Europe and the world. |
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SELMA | Spacial Deconcentration of Economic Land Use and Quality of Life in European Metropolitan Areas
Link | SELMA aims to develop a consistent and comprehensive approach and evaluation model for the analysis of spatial deconcentration of economic land use and its impact on urban quality of life. The ultimate goal is to design planning strategies for spatial configurations of economic land use in metropolitan areas. The evaluation will be based on three dimensions of quality of life: social, economic and environmental dimensions. This will include the development of a taxonomy of employment deconcentration, integration of quality of life concepts and measurements, and the development of a set of modules to assess land use scenarios. |
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COMET | Competitive Metropolises - Economic Transformation, Labour Market and Competition in European Agglomerations
Link | In comparison with North America, European metropolises have specific structures and functions which are the result of their cultural traditions as well as their historical development. Released from the pressures of immediate population growth, the focus of urban change is shifting from the quantitative level of demographic expansion to a qualitative restructuring of the urban economy and spatial structure. |
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SUPER | Sustainable Urban Planning and Economic (Re)development
Link | SUPER is directed at the clustering of four projects in the area of sustainable urban planning and economic development. This clustering will enhance the coordination of the outcome of the four projects and will strengthen their individual impact. |
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MASURIN | Management of Sustainable Revitalisation of Urban Industrial Sites
Link | Objective: Provide authorities with knowledge and tools to create a new partnership with industry and the public, based on awareness, transparency and openness to dialogue in order to improve and maintain a sustainable, environmentally and socio-economic optimised situation. The long-term objective is to improve local decision making with regard to industrial activities within the urban environment. |
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URBAN CATALYSTS | Strategies fo temorary uses- potential for development of urban residual areas in European metropolises
Link | Centrally located residual areas are increasingly important to the urban development of European cities. Revitalising these wastelands is often economically and politically difficult. Yet numerous unplanned uses emerge in these areas which often evolve into intensively used public and semi-public spaces, and become the starting point for new service and media enterprises. These unplanned uses are based on informal economies outside of traditional city planning and project development. Even though they offer great potential for urban and economic development as well as social integration and stabilisation, they are often displaced after a short period of time. The aim of urban catalyst is to examine strategies for temporary use and to develop instruments and methods that absorb its potential into contemporary city management and urban design. |