Sustainable urban development. What role do citizens play?

The cities of the 21st century face economic, environmental, climate, demographic, and social challenges. In this respect, the European Union has developed the Sustainable Urban Development Strategies, a plan for the reformation, development, and improvement of European cities that emphasises locality, cooperation intersectional collaboration, along with collective planning between multiple levels of governance. 

Regardless of their importance, these strategies have yet to gain the attention they deserve in either public debate or academic research. On the one hand, they represent something relatively new that is so far understudied. On the other hand, their implementation seems too technocratic and depoliticised. As a result, it remains mostly unfamiliar to the citizens and distant from the people or the entities involved in issues of developmental policies and urban planning. Therefore, the following questions are raised: 

Since Sustainable Urban Development is so frequently mentioned, what do the strategies they refer to involve? What do citizens know about the planning procedures and what is the citizens’ role in their preparation and implementation? Finally, to what extent do these strategies fulfill their initial purpose?  

All the above form part of the study’s basic inquiries, with its special interest focusing on civil participation in Strategies of Sustainable Urban Development, and the case study we use is the Region of Central Macedonia.   

The aim is not to re-evaluate the already chosen strategies, but to point out the positive steps, to understand the limits and the mistakes, and to explore proposals for future improvement.

Language: Greek