Handbook of SUD strategies Chapter 1 - Strategic Dimension

Introduction 

Emerging and long-standing urban development issues (e.g. urban regeneration, city and regional planning, shrinking cities, urban sustainability, attracting investments, city marketing, social segregation) require the development of a strategic framework, and challenge traditional approaches to urban policy and planning.

Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) as promoted under EU cohesion policy coherently emphasises the importance of having a strategic framework in place. A key requirement for the success of interventions by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is ensuring that individual investments are part of a long-term strategy, with a strong innovative component (AEIDL, 2013).

 More specifically, in the 2014-2020 programming period SUD is to be operationalised through ‘strategies that set out integrated actions’. In the post-2020 regulation, the emphasis on the strategic approach to SUD is even stronger (EC, 2018). The proposed new Policy Objective 5 (PO5) ‘Europe closer to citizens’ highlights the opportunities that integrated strategies present for the city of the future and its citizens. Furthermore, strategic planning is one of the three core elements together with scale and stakeholders that structure the OECD Principles of Urban Policy (OECD, 2019).

From a European policy perspective, the key question is how to support local governments in drafting strategies that contribute to structural changes at territorial level (Calafati, 2014a; Calafati, 2014b).

In order to effectively improve cities’ development trajectories, strategic planning requires collective planning processes and tailor-made and realistic visions (EC, 2011). Moreover, there has been a shift from fixed plans and solutions towards an adaptive process involving the management of change (Albrechts, 2015; Albrechts et al., 2016).

SUD strategies represent a different way of working between administrative levels in a multi-level governance system, and produce transformative roadmaps that include relevant actors such as citizens, companies and umbrella organisations (see chapter on Governance).

As part of the EU funding structure, SUD strategies should guarantee the coherence and integration of operational programmes (OPs), thematic objectives (TOs) and operations with local strategies and projects[1]. Moreover, the projects associated with the strategy have a direct impact on people and places. For this reason, SUD strategies should also serve as agendas for implementation.

This strategic approach matches the increased attention for the place-based approach advocated in the Barca report (2009) as a guiding principle for cohesion policy in 2014-2020, which will be maintained for the post-2020 programming period. Strategic policy frameworks that support place-based approaches recognise that urban challenges manifest themselves differently in different places. This is true not only in relation to different social, economic and institutional morphologies, but also to different spatial morphologies (Secchi, 2010). The place-based approach not only addresses the specific needs of each territory, but also draws on the knowledge and skills concentrated in those places to shape integrated and tailored solutions for territorial development[2]. Ultimately, local knowledge matches external interventions, supporting innovative collaboration, ideas and solutions.

Part 1 : Strategies as bridges between operational programmes and projects 

The added value of an EU agenda for urban policies is that its SUD funding ensures a minimum budget to foster a wider integrated planning process. In so doing, it encourages strategic alignment of programming instruments across EU Member States.

The post-2020 programming period, in particular, stresses the importance of integrated territorial development strategies, which should be built on:

• an analysis of development needs and the potential of the area;
• a description of the integrated approach addressing the identified development needs and potential; and
• a list of operations to be supported.

From an operational point of view, a strategy should then contain the following elements:

• a diagnosis of the urban area and a selection of the target area(s) (see Territorial Focus chapter);
• a description of the governance model (see Governance chapter);
• a definition of the general strategic framework, which should include a long-term vision, strategic goals, specific goals, and lines of action, and should specify the intervention logic and plan for periodic review. This requires deep reflection on how goals and lines of action are integrated (see Cross-Sectoral chapter);
• prioritisation of actions to be supported by European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF);
• a monitoring system which links OP indicators with strategy-specific indicators (see Monitoring chapter);
• an action plan that translates the long-term strategy and goals into investments with a budget and a schedule referring to the programming period of the ESIF (see Funding and Finance chapter).

Part 2 : Synergies with other policy frameworks

The post-2020 SUD strategies will be designed and implemented in a context of radical transformations and rapid change. In order to cope with this fluid situation, it is crucial to find effective ways of using available planning instruments strategically. The strategic way to do things does not necessarily require a full integration of strategic frameworks and a full set of goals, but enables punctual improvement of synergies and complementarities, in several ways and domains, according to contingent needs and available resources.

The ability of cities to implement strategies using ERDF funds is mainly influenced by (ECORYS (2010)):

• previous experience in the field of integrated urban development;
• a conducive national/regional institutional and policy framework.

Moreover, synergies between SUD and Research and Innovation strategies prove to be of interest for EU and local policy makers.