Urban regeneration: integrated approach

The EESC

• advocates a strategy of measures to be deployed on an urban or metropolitan scale for the architectural, urban planning, social and environmental regeneration of rundown neighbourhoods;
• therefore recommends that the EU should develop tools founded on systems of urban quality indicators, based on socio-urban and environmental hardship thresholds. It should also develop urban regeneration indexes to measure administrative efficiency, the measures' success rate, and the public satisfaction rate;
• trusts that the integration of sustainable transport and energy systems will form the foundations of urban regeneration policy;
• also believes that in order to promote more responsible citizen participation in the implementation of integrated urban regeneration programmes, a Europe-wide publicity campaign on practical savings derived from clean energy production should be launched in cooperation with networks representing citizens and sectors;
• coordinated EU action for the more decisive development of urban regeneration policies is an important means to fight harmful CO2 emissions and climate change;
• recalls the importance of cooperation with DG Regio and calls for this to be strengthened. But the Committee still sees a vital opportunity and need to build the capacity of DG Regio's operational urban policy team in order to speed up the processes involved in implementing the development programmes that the Commission intends to pursue.