Towards Sustainable Urbanization. Learning from What’s Out There

Alys Solly, Erblin Berisha and Giancarlo Cotella
Additional contact information
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

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-23

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.

Keywords: sustainable land use; urbanization; spatial governance and planning; Europe; ESPON (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/356/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/4/356/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:356-:d:527839

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().