From Strategy to Streets: SUD Implementation in El Vendrell
Published on
26/11/2025
About this challenge
Spain
Challenge description
El Vendrell is a small coastal city in Catalonia that has already defined a Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) / "Pla de Barris" strategy with seven strategic objectives and an ex-ante evaluation using indicators and a traffic-light system (red/amber/green). However, the main difficulty is not planning but implementation on the ground, especially in its most vulnerable neighbourhoods.
The city faces intertwined challenges: degraded housing stock and very limited affordable housing; social vulnerability, unemployment and low sense of belonging; dispersed urban structure with a partially degraded historic centre; and low resource efficiency, limited green and blue infrastructure and growing exposure to flooding and heatwaves. Governance and funding are also fragmented across municipal departments and levels of administration.
Through this challenge, El Vendrell is looking for peer cities that are also working on SUD or integrated neighbourhood strategies and that can share concrete ways to: turn strategic objectives into a phased and costed pipeline of neighbourhood projects; organise multi-level and multi-stakeholder governance for implementation; design integrated packages that link housing, social inclusion, public space and climate resilience; and use indicator systems and dashboards not only for reporting but to prioritise investments and adjust actions over time.
The city faces intertwined challenges: degraded housing stock and very limited affordable housing; social vulnerability, unemployment and low sense of belonging; dispersed urban structure with a partially degraded historic centre; and low resource efficiency, limited green and blue infrastructure and growing exposure to flooding and heatwaves. Governance and funding are also fragmented across municipal departments and levels of administration.
Through this challenge, El Vendrell is looking for peer cities that are also working on SUD or integrated neighbourhood strategies and that can share concrete ways to: turn strategic objectives into a phased and costed pipeline of neighbourhood projects; organise multi-level and multi-stakeholder governance for implementation; design integrated packages that link housing, social inclusion, public space and climate resilience; and use indicator systems and dashboards not only for reporting but to prioritise investments and adjust actions over time.
This city is looking for
El Vendrell would benefit mainly from support on how to move from a solid SUD / neighbourhood strategy and ex-ante assessment to effective implementation in vulnerable districts.
We are looking for cities with experience in:
• Setting up and running cross-departmental teams (urban planning, housing, social services, environment, mobility, economic development).
• Multi-level governance for SUD implementation and coordination with regional / national authorities and EU funding.
• Turning strategic objectives into a phased and costed pipeline of neighbourhood projects, including basic feasibility and financing options.
• Designing integrated packages that link affordable housing and rehabilitation, social inclusion, public space and green/blue infrastructure, sustainable mobility and circular economy.
• Making monitoring systems useful in practice: selecting a limited set of indicators, creating simple dashboards and using data and citizen feedback to adjust actions.
• Community engagement methods that work in vulnerable neighbourhoods, such as mediators, outreach and co-design of interventions.
• Connecting SUD and neighbourhood regeneration with local economic activation, green jobs and up-skilling.
The key skills we want to strengthen are strategic implementation, project development and funding, participatory methods, data-informed management and cross-sector coordination at neighbourhood level.
We are looking for cities with experience in:
• Setting up and running cross-departmental teams (urban planning, housing, social services, environment, mobility, economic development).
• Multi-level governance for SUD implementation and coordination with regional / national authorities and EU funding.
• Turning strategic objectives into a phased and costed pipeline of neighbourhood projects, including basic feasibility and financing options.
• Designing integrated packages that link affordable housing and rehabilitation, social inclusion, public space and green/blue infrastructure, sustainable mobility and circular economy.
• Making monitoring systems useful in practice: selecting a limited set of indicators, creating simple dashboards and using data and citizen feedback to adjust actions.
• Community engagement methods that work in vulnerable neighbourhoods, such as mediators, outreach and co-design of interventions.
• Connecting SUD and neighbourhood regeneration with local economic activation, green jobs and up-skilling.
The key skills we want to strengthen are strategic implementation, project development and funding, participatory methods, data-informed management and cross-sector coordination at neighbourhood level.
City size
Towns (< 50,000 inhabitants)
Author
Maria Luisa Lopez Nos
Spain
Consultant
El Vendrell MunicipalityC
