National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe (Euricur Series (European Institute for Comparative Urban Research))

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NATIONAL POLICY RESPONSES TO URBAN CHALLENGES IN EUROPE

The European Institute for Comparative Urban Research, EURICUR, was founded in 1988 and has its seat with Erasmus University Rotterdam. EURICUR is the heart and pulse of an extensive network of European cities and universities. EURICUR’s principal objective is to stimulate fundamental international comparative research into matters that are of interest to cities. To that end, EURICUR coordinates, initiates and carries out studies of subjects of strategic value for urban management today and in the future. Through its network EURICUR has privileged access to crucial information regarding urban development in Europe and North America and to key persons at all levels, working in different public and private organizations active in metropolitan areas. EURICUR closely cooperates with the Eurocities Association, representing more than 100 large European cities. As a scientific institution, one of EURICUR’s core activities is to respond to the increasing need for information that broadens and deepens the insight into the complex process of urban development, among others by disseminating the results of its investigations by international book publications. These publications are especially valuable for city governments, supranational, national and regional authorities, chambers of commerce, real estate developers and investors, academics and students, and others with an interest in urban affairs.

This book is one of a series to be published by Ashgate under the auspices of EURICUR, the European Institute for Comparative Urban Research, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Titles in the series are: The European High-Speed Train and Urban Development Leo van den Berg and Peter M.J. Pol Growth Clusters in European Metropolitan Cities Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Willem van Winden Information and Communications Technology as Potential Catalyst for Sustainable Urban Development Leo van den Berg and Willem van Winden Sports and City Marketing in European Cities Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Alexander H.J. Otgaar Social Challenges and Organising Capacity in Cities Leo van den Berg, Jan van der Meer and Peter M.J. Pol City and Enterprise Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Alexander H.J. Otgaar The Student City Leo van den Berg and Antonio P. Russo European Cities in the Knowledge Economy Leo van den Berg, Peter M.J. Pol, Willem van Winden and Paulus Woets The Safe City Leo van den Berg, Peter M.J. Pol, Guiliano Mingardo and Carolien J.M. Spellier

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

Edited by LEO VAN DEN BERG ERIK BRAUN JAN VAN DER MEER

European Institute for Comparative Urban Research Erasmus University Rotterdam The Netherlands www.euricur.nl

© Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Jan van der Meer 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Jan van der Meer have asserted their moral rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data National policy responses to urban challenges in Europe. (EURICUR series) 1.Urban policy - European Union countries I.Berg, Leo van den II.Braun, Erik III.Meer, J. van der 307.1'216'094 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data National policy responses to urban challenges in Europe / edited by Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Jan van der Meer. p. cm. -- (EURICUR series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-7546-4846-8 1. Urban policy--European Union countries. 2. City and town life--European Union countries. I. Berg, Leo van den. II. Braun, Erik. III. Meer, J. van der. IV. European Institute for Comparative Urban Research. V. Series HT131.N367 2006 307.76094--dc22 2006000104 ISBN: 978-0-7546-4846-8

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.

Contents List of Tables List of Figures Abbreviations Preface

vii ix x xi

1

Introduction and Research Framework

2

National Urban Policies: The Situation in the Mid-1990s

15

3

The Urban Dimension in European Policy: History, Actors and Programmes

39

4

Austria: No National Urban Policies Friedrich Schindegger

5

Urban Policies in Belgium: A Puff-pastry with a Bittersweet Aftertaste? Maarten Loopmans, Sarah Luyten and Christian Kesteloot

6

Denmark’s National Urban Showcase: The Öresund Area Regional Development Christian Wichmann Matthiessen

7

Finland: Towards Urban Innovation Policy Eero Holstila

8

France: Metropolitan Areas as New ‘Reference Territories’ for Public Policies Christian Lefèvre

9

Urban Germany: The Future Will Be Different Klaus R. Kunzmann

10 National Urban Policy in Greece Dimitris Economou, George Petrakos and Yannis Psycharis 11 Ireland: Metropolitan Dominance – the Challenge in Achieving Balanced Territorial Development Michael J. Bannon

1

63

79

105

125

145

169

193

217

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vi

12 Italy: Towards the Recognition of the Strategic Relevance of Metropolitan Cities Ilaria Bramezza 13 Luxembourg: National Local Partnerships Ariane Chouly and Jan van der Meer 14 The Netherlands: Empowering Large Cities to Meet Their Challenges Erik Braun, Ariane Chouly and Jan van der Meer 15 Portugal: Urban Policies or Policies with an Urban Incidence? Álvaro Domingues, Nuno Portas and Teresa Sá Marques 16 Spain: Changing Century, Changing Cycle? Large Spanish Cities on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century Oriol Nel.lo 17 Sweden: The Emergence of a National Urban Policy Jan-Evert Nilsson

245

271

279

311

333

361

18 United Kingdom: The Changing Landscape of English Urban Policy Michael Parkinson

379

19 Synthesis

399

Annexes 1

The Basics of EU Regional Policy

433

2

List of National Government Representatives

437

Index

439

List of Tables 2.1 2.2

Population concentration in major urban regions Urbanisation, spatial patterns, social problem concentration, large cities and national populations in EU-countries (1990–1997) 3.1 Summary of the stages of EU Regional Policy and its urban dimension 3.2 EU programmes specifically directed at cities 3.3 Comparison of the two phases of URBAN 4.1 Cities and urban regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1996 5.1 Primary government expenditures (debt redemption excluded) 5.2 Economic distribution of municipal revenues (as % of total revenues) 5.3 Some socioeconomic indicators for Belgium’s five large cities (2004) A5.1 Municipalities and agglomerations of over 100,000 inhabitants in 2003 6.1 Urban and rural population 6.2 Population in large cities* A6.1 Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in core 7.1 City regions of over 100,000 inhabitants in 2002 8.1 Population of the 14 largest urban areas in France in 1999 8.2 Structure of local revenues in 1999 (%) 8.3 Evolution of main inter-municipal structures: 1972–2000 8.4 Importance of automobiles in some of the largest urban areas (per cent mechanised modes) (various years between 1985–2002) 8.5 The new institutional structures established by the Chevènement Act 8.6 Evolution of inter-municipal structures with their own fiscality (1992–2002) 9.1 Population dynamics in selected cities in Germany from the 1990s and until 2020 9.2 Municipalities and urban population in Germany in the year 2000 10.1 Number of cities with population over 10,000 people by size class 10.2 Distribution of urban population by size class 10.3 Urban population growth 10.4 Population of the largest cities in Greece, 1961–2001 11.1 Population change 1996–2002 classified by settlement size groupings

17 34 45 46 53 71 81 82 84 104 109 110 124 126 146 149 150 153 156 160 173 174 194 195 195 203 219

viii

11.2 11.3 11.4

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

Population change by Functional Areas, 1996–2002 Large urban areas and centres, 1996–2002 Level of investment in urban renewal schemes by stage of development, €m 11.5 The five spatial elements of the NSS and their future roles 11.6 Possible population growth of existing Gateways, 000s 12.1 Population in 2001, demographic density and number of inhabitants 1991–2001 (%) 12.2 Unemployment rates in provinces in 1995 and 2001 and rates’ difference 1995 and 2001 (%) 12.3 The performance in quality of life in the 14 largest cities in Italy (1 = best performance) 12.5 Number breakdown for immigrants destination (2001) A12.1 Inhabitants (thousands) large cities 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 13.1 Population estimates for the largest cities of Luxembourg 14.1 Municipalities of over 100,000 inhabitants and urban regions 14.2 Role of ministries with respect to urban policy (GSB-II involvement) 14.3 Total indicative budget (€) and ministries involved in GSB-III 15.1 Demographic trends, 1991 and 2001 15.2 IORU, public expenditure 1994–1999 (€ million) 15.3 Operational Programme, NUTS II Lisbon and Tagus Valley Region 1994–1999 16.1 Urban 2 Programme: budget for Spain, period 2000–2006 17.1 Major urban regions and their economic performance, 1990– 2002 18.1 Population change since 1981 for England’s main conurbations and principal cities

221 222 231 235 236 248 249 250 258 269 271 281 285 301 313 319 324 353 362 381

List of Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 5.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 12.1 18.1 18.2 18.3

Research framework for national urban policies from 1997 Interaction concerning policy-making between different layers of government National urban policies 2003 The proposed objectives and financial instruments for the Cohesion Policy in the programming period 2007–2013 The European cities involved in the different networks created by URBACT Eligible regions for Objectives 1 and 2 in the programming period 2000–2006 Map of Austria and surrounding area The Belgian institutional context Four large cities (urban area). Labour market regions indicated Structural map with urban system indicators The Öresund area 2003. The map shows the area most engaged in the new regional development process The population growth in Helsinki region Regional centre programmes Urban policy programme for the Helsinki region Italy and the 14 largest cities and metropolitan areas GDP of sample of European non-capital cities European Innovation Scoreboard Urban educational standards

10 11 13 44 55 57 64 80 114 118 120 131 136 139 247 386 387 388

Abbreviations CCRs CCDRs

Comissões de Coordenação Regional Comissões de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional (ex-CCRs) FEDER Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Regional (European Regional Funds) IGAPHE Instituto de Gestão e Alienação do Património Habitacional do Estado INTEGRAR (1994) Programa para a Integração Económica e Social de Grupos Vulneráveis IORU Intervenção Operacional de Revitalização Urbana MAOT Ministério do Ambiente e do Ordenamento do Território MEPAT Ministerio do Equipamento, do Planeamento e da Administração do Território PDM Plano Director Municipal PDR Plano de Desenvolvimento Regional PER Programa Especial de Realojamento PIDDAC Plano de Investimentos e Despesas de Desenvolvimento da Administração Central PMOTs Planos Municipais de Ordenamento do Território PNDES Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento Económico e Social PNPOT Programa Nacional de Planeamento e de Ordenamento do Território POLIS Programa Nacional de Reabilitação Urbana e Requalificação Ambiental POR-LVT Programa Operacional da Região de Lisboa e Vale do Tejo PP Plano de Pormenor PRAUD Programa de Recuperação de Áreas Urbanas Degradadas PROCOM Programa de Modernização do Comércio PROSIURB Programa de Consolidação do Sistema Urbano Nacional e de Apoio à Execução dos Planos Directores Municipais PROT Plano Regional de Ordenamento do Território PU Plano de Urbanização RECRIA (1999) Programa de Reabilitação de Habitação Degradada REHABITA (1996) Programa de Reabilitação de Habitações Degradadas (áreas críticas e centros históricos)

Preface On the occasion of the Dutch EU Presidency (during the second half of 2004), the Ministry of The Interior and Kingdom Relations of the Netherlands invited the European Institute for Comparative Urban Research (EURICUR) of Erasmus University Rotterdam to carry out a follow up investigation concerning urban policy conducted by national authorities in the 15 ‘old’ member-states of the European Union. A first investigation into the state of art of national urban policy, also carried out by EURICUR on the invitation of the Dutch Ministry, was completed in 1997. This second report, focusing on the changes in national urban policies since then and furthermore taking into account the European influence on national policy-making is a background document and source of information for the ministers of the member states of the European Union responsible for urban matters. These ministers met in November 2004 in Rotterdam. Thanks to EURICUR’s international network of universities and cities and also thanks to the national government representatives (for details see Annex 2) who were willing to comment on the draft versions of the national reports, we were able to produce this report. We would like to thank all those persons across Europe that have contributed by writing a national report or by giving their professional comments and advice. The 15 national reports, together with the introduction of the framework for the comparative analysis, a recapitulation of the findings of the first study from 1997, an overview of European urban policies and the overall synthesis of the new findings make up this report. We appreciate the valuable contributions of Friedrich Schindegger (Austria), Maarten Loopmans, Sarah Luyten and Christian Kesteloot (Belgium), Christian Wichmann Matthiessen (Denmark), Eero Holstila (Finland), Christian Lefèvre (France), Klaus R. Kunzmann (Germany), Dimitris Economou, George Petrakos and Yannis Psycharis (Greece), Michael J. Bannon (Ireland), Ilaria Bramezza (Italy), Àlvaro Domingues, Nuno Portas and Teresa Sá Marques (Portugal), Oriol Nel.lo (Spain), Jan-Evert Nilsson (Sweden) and Michael Parkinson (United Kingdom). The investigation was carried out under the supervision of a committee composed of drs. H.J. Meijer (mayor of Zwolle), mr. L.J. Verhulst (alderman in Utrecht), mr.drs. G.A.A. Verkerk (alderman in The Hague), Prof.dr. P.E.W.M.Tops (University Tilburg), drs. I.W.D. Veenkamp (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Head of the department GSB), drs. W. Bringmann (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, GSB). We would like to thank the supervisors and advisors, including Mr Lewis Dijkstra (DG Regional Policy of the European Commission), for their valuable remarks and pleasant cooperation. Naturally, the views expressed in the report are those of the authors and editors only. Furthermore, we would like to thank Ariane Chouly as co-author of the national reports on the Netherlands and Luxembourg and

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National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

Giuliano Mingardo as co-author of Chapter 3 on European urban policy. Finally, we would like to thank Paulus Woets, Alexander Otgaar, Laura Capel Tatjer and Ankimon Vernède for their support. Leo van den Berg Erik Braun Jan van der Meer Rotterdam

Chapter 1

Introduction and Research Framework 1.1

Introduction

European urban development is progressively challenged by ongoing processes of globalisation, the shift towards a knowledge-based and technology-driven economy, increasing mobility of production factors, demographic change, European integration, accumulation of social and environmental problems and traffic congestion. Cities have to operate in an increasingly complex and competitive environment. Urban competition seems to have become the leading principle to determine the future urban system in Europe (Brotchie et al., 1995; Kresl, 1995; Cheshire and Gordon, 1995; and many others). Cities need to anticipate and respond efficiently and effectively to opportunities and threats that influence their competitiveness structurally. City governments develop policies to try to meet these challenges, but at the same time higher layers of government pursue policies that influence the position of the cities. National governments – and regional governments in federal states – draw up financial and policy frameworks that establish the social, economic and political conditions for cities to design their own policies. Apart from the influence of national governments, EU cities are increasingly affected by supranational policy, notably regional, social, transport and environmental policy. Research Questions This publication aims to present the state of the art concerning explicit national urban policies in the member states of the European Union. ‘National urban policy’ refers to policies that affect the cities knowingly and directly. However, the scope is not limited to explicit national urban policy alone; it also stretches to European and national policy, as far as it makes a substantial impact on the development of the larger cities. The investigation is guided by the following questions: 1 What do national and regional authorities consider to be major issues for a desired development of ‘their’ larger cities? 2 What important changes have recently taken place in national policy responses to cope with these major issues? 3 What role is attributed to European policy with respect to urban development and urban policy-making?

2

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

The experiences in the 15 member states serve as input for a comparative analysis. What are the differences, similarities, challenges and trends in national urban policies? And what is the perceived role of ‘Europe’ in this respect? Perceived role, because the scope of this investigation is predominantly a comparison of national approaches and not an investigation into the impact of the European policies on cities. This would require a different, urban audit-like approach. In this study the emphasis is on recent changes in national policies. That is to say, changes that took place since the mid-1990s. A more or less similar study into national urban policies by the same editors and most of the same contributors took place in 1997 and was published as a book in 1998 (van den Berg, Braun and van der Meer, 1998). Given changing global, national and local circumstances and increasing national and European interest in seizing urban (economic) opportunities and combating urban (social and environmental) problems, an update of the 1997 study is required. The 1997 study presented a structured overview of national urban development patterns, administrative and financial frameworks, urban policy issues and challenges, as seen from a national perspective (and partly from a regional perspective in the federal states). This update serves both as a supplement to the first publication and as an individual exercise. Some topics dealt with in the first volume will now be treated only marginally (such as spatial patterns, administrative and financial structures), unless important changes have taking place in these domains. Moreover, in this update, recent national policy-making, its organisation and the influence of ‘Europe’ on cities and on national urban policy-making will be emphasised. Taken together, this results in an overview for national and local authorities to learn from mutual experiences and for European institutions to learn how the influence of European policies is perceived in the member states. Position of the New Member States The 1997 study provides a firm basis for an update for the 15 member states. Regrettably this is missing for the 10 new member states. In addition, the differences between existing and new members will be quite substantial, with regard to both urban development and urban policy formulation and implementation. Given the complexity of problems, the new member states demand a special approach. Therefore this update will be devoted to the Europe of the 15 existing member states only. Research Approach In this first chapter some features of urban dynamics in Europe will be referred to and a framework for national policy responses to urban issues will be presented. The second chapter contains a general overview of the national urban policy in the European Union during the mid-1990s. This overview is based on the 1997

Introduction and Research Framework

3

investigation. This overview is considered the starting point for this volume, aiming to highlight changes since then in national urban policy directions. Chapter 3 is devoted to European urban policy. The majority of European policies have effects on urban issues. The European Commission wants the various programmes in urban areas to support a sustainable urban development approach with as main objectives to enhance economic prosperity and employment, to promote equality of opportunity, social integration and urban renovation, to protect and improve the urban environment, and to contribute to good urban government, including boosting the local community’s ability to take action. This perspective – to take more account of the urban dimension – has resulted in the implementation of some experimental European programmes, the inclusion of urban issues in regional programmes and the production of various policy documents concerning sustainable urban development. In the national chapters the way in which EU policy and EU ruling contribute to the design of national urban policy will be investigated. Chapter 3 presents an overview of European urban policies and actions and the role European institutions play with respect to urban issues. Chapter 4 contains the summaries of the expert reports for the 15 ‘old’ member states. National academic experts in urban development or closely related issues have written national reports. The reports all deal with the following topics: 1 Introduction, including a concise ‘national urban profile’ with attention to the national urban pattern, the economic and social position and past performance of major cities and the most significant features of the national administrative and financial framework. 2 A summary of national urban policy development until the mid-1990s, with an emphasis on major developments in this policy and the driving forces behind it. 3 Description of the current situation of the larger cities in the specific country: what are major problems? What are major opportunities? What can be said about the effects/influence of national policy (as described in 2 above) on these problems and opportunities? 4 This section highlights national policy changes since the mid-1990s and discusses the intensions/plans/proposals for changes in national policies towards cities in the future. 5 This section deals with the effects of European policies and subsidies on cities and the effect of ‘Europe’ on urban development and on national urban policy-making as perceived by national authorities. 6 Summary and conclusions. The full national reports comprise Chapters 4 to 18 of this report. Finally, Chapter 19 synthesises the main findings. The outcomes of the national chapters are compared, leading to a description of emerging trends in national and European urban policy and the motives behind this policy. In addition, the

4

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

current and possible future role of Europe with respect to urban policy will be highlighted. Clarification of Some Notions Some notions that are essential to this study, like ‘explicit’ urban policy, ‘major’ or ‘larger’ cities and European policy ‘impact’, will now be clarified. The objective of this study is to investigate how national governments ‘treat’ their major cities. So in principle it is about policies that have been explicitly formulated to affect the development of cities. In general terms, urban policy can be described as the whole set of government measures at different administrative levels – European, national, regional or local – that is directed to cities. In theory, all layers of government could pursue urban policy. However, the higher layers of government also formulate policies that are not specifically designed for cities but could have a major impact on them. These policies are not targeted on cities, but they are to some extent ‘urban’ through their impact on cities. Concerning national policy responses, it is important to make a distinction between policy explicitly directed at cities and policy that is not, but that is ‘urban’ in the sense that it has substantial impact on cities, such as housing policy, transportation policy, spatial planning policy, etc. Another, equally important distinction is that between partial (sector-specific) and integral (sector-exceeding) policy. Such urban issues as accessibility, quality of living and economic revitalisation are so strongly connected that a more comprehensive approach can be far more effective. The notion ‘major’ or ‘larger’ city needs clarification too. ‘Major’ and ‘larger’ are relative notions that will be used in quite a different way depending on the issue. In this study they refer in the first place to the size of the urban population. We do not intend to define a population threshold that makes a city a ‘major’ or ‘large’ city (if such a definition existed …). We only suggest having cities in mind with a certain critical mass that makes them important as economic, social and transport centres within a nation state. We prefer to follow the proposal by Eurostat to the European Commission for the update of the Urban Audit. This proposal covers about 20 per cent of the population in each of the member states. This leads to a tentative list of about 100 ‘large-sized cities’ (Eurostat, 2001). These cities can be addressed as ‘major’ or ‘large’ in their respective countries. In this way cities are considered from a national point of view. The tentative Eurostat list contains cities ranging from 6.7 million inhabitants (London) to 52,000 inhabitants (Limerick, the third Irish city) (Eurostat, 2001). The number of major cities per country ranges from 20 in Germany to one in Luxembourg. Although it cannot be neglected, size alone is not a strong indicator. Cities will primarily be considered as major for their economic importance. Some cities are far more important from an economic point of view than their size implies. In an updated version of the well-known DATAR ranking of European urban regions (published in 1989), special attention is devoted to the gap between the city ranking according to the

Introduction and Research Framework

5

indicators used and population size (Brunett, 1989; Rozenblat and Cicille, 2003). Some cities which are ranked high relative to their size are Amsterdam, Geneva, Granada, Luxembourg and Montpellier. In constrast to these are cities that score low in view of their size like Essen, Belfast, Liverpool, Naples and Sheffield. To conclude, major cities in this study are those cities which, in a national or regional context, are large or economically important enough to function as market centres, centres for work, transport, etc. In this study the starting point is national urban policy, rather than the large city status. This might imply that other than the suggested large cities are included in the country reports. European policies have become increasingly important to cities – so important that several cities or groups of cities have established an office in Brussels to promote their interests. Although it seems that most attention is devoted to the financial sources, there is also the impact of European rules and regulations and the stimulation of exchange of experience. In this study we will deal with the effects of European policies and subsidies on cities, as perceived by national authorities and the effect of ‘Europe’ on national urban policies. We realise that perception is not the same as fact. However, to analyse the impact of Europe on city development and urban policy-making would require another approach. In this study we will present an overview of European policies targeted to large cities and the way these policies seem to influence national urban policy-making. 1.2

European Urban Dynamics

The European Union of the 15 member states is one of the world’s most urbanised areas. Close to 40 per cent of the Europeans live and work in the more than 350 cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants (Eurostat, 2001; van den Berg, Braun and van der Meer, 1998). Clearly, the cities – or more accurately the functional urban regions – are the vital economic, cultural, transport and innovative centres of Europe. They function as the motors of the regional, national and European economy. However, many of these motors face problems such as heavy traffic congestion, relatively high unemployment rates, increasing social exclusion and spatial segregation, high crime rates, feelings of insecurity and heavy pressure on environmental quality. The rising socio-economic disparities within urban regions seem to sharpen in the near future. They are a threat to a balanced and sustainable urban development and are therefore an impediment on the social and economic cohesion within the member states. Competition In the end, inhabitants, local businesses, local investors and visitors determine whether a city is attractive or not. These (existing or potential) ‘customers’ of cities put high demands on the quality of the business and living environment. Businesses consider factors like the quality of the (potential) labour force, the

6

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

economic structure, the local knowledge base, the fiscal climate, local tax rates, telecommunications, (international) accessibility of import and export markets, and the availability of financial resources highly relevant to their location behaviour. In addition, the quality of the living environment has become a necessary condition for economic development as well. Attributes such as urban services, housing conditions, the availability of green areas, the cultural climate, the quality of public space, urban safety and leisure facilities have become important location factors for those growth industries that prefer locations in or near large population concentrations. The weights that are attributed to these location factors have changed considerably under the influence of processes of globalisation, economic restructuring, informationalisation and European integration. Many economic activities have a global scope, with major consequences for urban regions, while national borders seem to play an ever-decreasing role (Ohmae, 1995). Such developments have intensified competition among cities both within countries as well as on a European scale. European unification and the establishment of a monetary union, facilitating access to cities and regions and their services, labour markets, and input and export markets have increased the mobility of European businesses and citizens and are as such inducements to competition between cities too. Competition should be understood here in its original meaning, derived from the Latin cum petere, which means ‘doing things together, to participate’. In this sense the objective of competition is not confrontation but rather keeping with others, not lagging behind. The Impact of Information and Communication Technology Globalisation has become possible through information and communication technology. The consequences of the rising information society for the economic functioning of cities cannot be defined univocally. Some scholars have pointed out that the emergence of new high-grade communication means can be a threat to the economic functioning of cities. They warn of the ‘death of distance’. However, according to others (Hall, 1995; Sassen, 1991) major cities will go on attracting high-tech sectors (such as finance, media, education, art and culture, design, private and public services) through massive location inertia, since these are the locations where information has traditionally been generated and exchanged. Increasingly, innovative activities rely on information, and they need to be accessible for and have access to information at both ends of their production process. The impression is that the transition to an information society has considerably strengthened the position of cities as nerve centres of the ‘new economics’. Cities provide the daily context for the increasingly global and peripatetic interactions within the economic, social and cultural spheres. Cities become parts of networks of information exchanges that in turn make high demands on the telecommunication facilities and the education and skills of their workforce. Because the need for face-to-face communication seems hardly

Introduction and Research Framework

7

affected, it is expected that, in Europe, the large cities – and within them the city centres – will retain this role. Changing Urban Economic Structures Along with globalisation, the economic structure of cities in the European Union has changed considerably in recent decades. The expansion of world trade and investments both results from and contributes to the global mobility of production factors such as labour, capital, landownership and technology. This alters the structure and location of employment, use of technologies, patterns of trade and investment and economic opportunities in and among cities (Rondinelli, Johnson and Kasarda, 1998). Heavy manufacturing industries no longer dominate the urban economy: whole arrays of knowledge-based industries and service activities (such as trade, financial services, commercial services, cultural activities, etc.) have taken their place. Technologically advanced industries are thriving on the intense networks of small and medium-sized firms. Competitiveness in these sectors is still to some extent dependent on a city or region, but the initial advantages might have been developed just as well at other locations. Moreover, such highly dynamic markets are subject to rapid changes. The initial chances of cities have become somewhat more equal and it is up to them to make capital out of these opportunities. A consequence of globalisation and informationalisation is the re-orientation in business life, like the growing importance of economic clustering. The strategic re-orientation in business life has expressed itself through new organisational structures, the forming of networks, etc. Businesses concentrate on their core competency and outsource their non-strategic activities to specialists. Although communication technology facilitates the worldwide formation of clusters, these clusters are often spatially determined; people want to be close to each other. This means downsizing in the large corporations and growth in small and medium-sized enterprises. This in turn creates clusters within which there is interdependence. Such local and regional business networks – embedded within the local institutional, political and cultural borders and often locally cooperative but globally competitive – are the anchors of a powerful (albeit often fragile and vulnerable) urban economy (Amin and Thrift, 1994). Many cities are seeking to identify clusters within their economic structure and, where possible, to create conditions under which the clusters can develop successfully, for instance by setting up knowledge centres or offering specialised infrastructures. The Advancement of Urban Networks Competition implies that cities will concentrate more on their core competencies, which will induce a process of further spatial specialisation in Europe. Cities are also becoming more interdependent. In effect, one can expect competition to induce the ‘competitive’ city but at the same time to give rise to the

8

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

‘complementary’ city. Growing interdependency among cities implies the advancement of urban networks. Cities that are situated relatively close to each other are becoming aware that cooperation instead of competition on strategic issues will produce mutual benefits. Moreover, creating critical mass seems to be helpful to attract, to establish or to retain high-grade functions that would not have been possible to attract or to establish by a city alone. If formal and decisive regional structures are missing this could lead to the formation of strategic urban networks. Another expectation is that the scope and importance of (inter)national urban networks linking cities with similar economic functions, for instance logistic nodes or financial centres, will increase. In addition, cities get together to apply for European funding or for exchange of experiences and ‘best practices’ in specific areas such as networks for sustainable cities, car-free cities, telecities, etc. Urban Attractiveness and Quality of Place as Emerging Location Factors In the consumer area there is an increase in leisure activities and tourism. Tourism is one of the most important growth sectors. It is also a sector which contributes to broadening the economy and creating job opportunities in the lower-skilled sectors of the job market, particularly in those areas where many cities have to fight unemployment. That is why many cities try to improve their image as a tourist destination. International leisure tourism competition is fierce in ‘city breaks’ in particular. Moreover, we can observe a growth of business meetings (trade fairs, conferences, expositions and other business meetings). Business meetings are lucrative for the urban economy because they deliver considerable multiplier effects, thanks to the spending in the local economy. Art and culture, too, are increasingly being seen as attractive to urban economies. Some industrial cities (among them Glasgow, Bilbao and some English and German cities) have tried to change their less attractive tourism image to that of a city of culture. Event tourism is also highly valued. Cities are preparing to organise large, attractive events that function as a catalyst for the city’s economic performance – Barcelona is a successful example. There is also the benefit of (free) publicity around big events that influences the city’s image (mostly but not always) in a positive manner. Directly connected to tourist attractiveness is the increasing attention on quality of living in functional (personal services, education, nightlife) as well as in physical ways (quality of residential and working areas, shopping centres, outdoor/green-belt areas, quality of the natural environment). This has a lot to do with the desires of well-educated employees. They make demands regarding the quality and accessibility of their working, living and residential environment. The concept of an attractive work environment as part of a mixture of functions (shopping, restaurants, nightlife, recreation and residence) seems to have been handled successfully in many cities (van den Berg, van der Meer and Otgaar, 2000). There is a great deal of investment in revitalisation, particularly in central

Introduction and Research Framework

9

city parts, so that city centres appear to continue to function as the beating hearts of their regions. Accumulation of Unemployment, Poverty and Deprivation Social problems such as unemployment, poverty, crime, youth delinquency, lack of education, drug abuse, homelessness and other social deprivation accumulate in areas of cities. In many of the larger European cities a polarisation is defining itself between the dynamic, well-educated segments of the population who share in the economic and social progress, and another segment that cannot share and, as a result, falls into economic and social exclusion. Such a concentration of distressed groups is especially manifest in cities that have been hit by economic decline. However, it also occurs in cities that have managed to reverse a downward economic trend and in cities that have been prosperous for a longer time. The heterogeneous groups of the less privileged tend to be located in specific areas within major cities. The accumulation of social problems in cities poses a clear threat to a balanced urban development and may hamper the cities in their functioning as engines of the economy. Combatting social polarisation seems to be one of the most important, but at the same time one of the most difficult, challenges. Transition in Central and Eastern Europe The entry of former ‘Eastern Bloc’ countries into the EU invites new competitors into the cities of the Union. The low wages in these countries will induce labourintensive companies to migrate from existing EU countries to the new member states. The difference in the standards of living between the West and the East may induce people from Eastern Europe to come to the West in search of better living conditions. The majority of them will settle in those larger cities that already face major integration problems with communities of foreign descent such as Turkish and North African people, people from former colonies and asylum seekers. Increasing Attention on Sustainable Development Closely bound up with the rise of welfare and the changing aspiration levels of European citizens is the rising importance that is attributed to the environment. The rising environmental awareness has promoted the idea of sustainable urban development, a development that provides for the needs of the present generation without jeopardising the possibilities for future generations (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Sustainable urban development is a broad notion incorporating the environment, quality of life, economics and social justice (Aalborg Charter, 1994).

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National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

Need for New Urban Development Strategies Cities find themselves challenged. They have to adapt themselves to the new logic of competition (Bramezza, 1996) and at the same time find their place in various urban networks. They compete on a widening international scale in search of mobile investment and trade but at the same time are threatened by the cumulating social and environmental problems. To be able to deal with the complex of potential opportunities and problems cities have to organise themselves properly. The ability of cities to develop and implement strategies to anticipate, respond to and cope with internal and external changes and to create, in close cooperation with relevant public and private partners, conditions for sustainable development, depends on the organising capacity within the urban region (van den Berg, Braun and van der Meer, 1997). A central element of organising capacity is the need for a joint effort of different layers of government as well as other public institutions and private actors to meet the challenges posed to cities. An important challenge for organising capacity is to create or maintain sustainable urban development. Such a development seems to be dependent on knowledge creation, entrepreneurial and technological capacities, leadership and community support, a modern urban infrastructure, new forms of metropolitan cooperation and integration of the urban poor into the urban economy (Rondinelli, Johnson and Kasarda, 1998).

Figure 1.1 Research framework for national urban policies from 1997

Introduction and Research Framework

1.3

11

Research Framework

In the previous study we developed a research framework for understanding the development of national urban policies in the member states. From the outset we have indicated that the development cannot be separated from the national context. In that research framework we included the following factors that explain the development of national urban policies: • • •

the pattern of spatial and economic development; the administrative and financial framework (setting the margins for the development of national urban policies); the (national) political debate and political priorities.

The 1997 study demonstrated that these three factors are helpful to understand some of the differences between urban policy-making in the member states on the one hand and that these factors offer an explanation for the similarities on the other hand. The 1997 study was a first inventory of national and local policies in the member states. In this follow-up study we aim to present an update on national urban policies and to include some issues more explicitly.

Figure 1.2 Interaction concerning policy-making between different layers of government

12

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

Interaction between Levels of Policy-making One of the key issues in this follow-up study which will receive specific attention is the interaction between policy-making on different levels. One of the assumptions is that the interaction between the local (urban), regional (if there is one), national and European levels is becoming more important. We emphasise that interaction refers to the influence on policy-making among different levels of government. Hence, it is not just concerned with the classical top-down policy-making process but also includes local policy initiatives that effect policy-making of higher layers of government (bottom-up). The European Level versus the Local Level One example of interaction is that between the European level and the local level. Despite the fact that the word ‘urban’ cannot be found in the Maastricht Treaty, European policies and programmes have a significant impact on policy-making in cities. The impact of ‘Europe’ on cities has to do not just with European law and regulations but also with European regional policy and special programmes such as the ‘urban programme’. In Chapter 3 we present an outline of the European policies relevant to the development of cities. In most cases the national government is an intermediary between the local and European level because of the principle of subsidiarity. In this research we include not only the perceived effect of European policies on cities but also the effect of local initiatives on European policy-making. Individual cities and city organisations (for instance Eurocities) try to influence decision-making at the European level. The National Level versus the Local Level Another example of interaction is the interaction between the national and local level of policy-making. In the 1997 study we have already indicated that in some countries both a top-down and bottom-up approach to explicit national urban policies have been developed. We also included the degree of freedom for local authorities to pursue their own policies. For this follow-up study we would like to include the influence on the policy agenda as well. It is obvious that changes in national urban policies will have an effect on local urban policies and political priorities. At the same time, new or different policy developments at the local level could have an effect on the national agenda as well. The European Level versus the National Level The third aspect of interaction between levels of policy-making is the interaction between the European and national levels. We have already touched upon the role of national governments as intermediary between the European and local levels. Interaction between the European level and the national level could be concerned

Introduction and Research Framework

13

Figure 1.3 National urban policies 2003 with the European policies and programmes that effect national policies towards cities, and vice versa, successful policies on the national level might be adopted on the European level. Apart from the more explicit attention on the interaction between levels of policy-making, we also include factors that were included in the previous studies as well as some of the issues raised in the previous pages. Figure 1.3 shows some of the features included in the research. References Aalborg Charter of European Cities amd Towns Towards Sustainability (1994), Aalborg. Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (eds) (1994), Globalization, Institutions and Regional Development in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bramezza, I. (1996), The Competitiveness of the European City and the Role of Urban Management in Improving the City’s Performance, Tinbergen Institute Research Series No. 109, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Brotchie, J., Batty, M., Blakely, E., Hall, P. and Newton, P. (1995), Cities in Competition, Melbourne: Longman. Brunett, R. (1989), Les villes européennes, DATAR/RECLUS, La Documentation Française. Castells, M. (1991), The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban-Regional Process, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cheshire, P, and Gordon, I. (eds), 1995, Territorial Competition in an Integrating Europe: Local Impact and Public Policy, Aldershot: Avebury. Eurostat, document E4/URBAN/2001/7. Hall, P. (1995), ‘Towards a General Urban Theory’, in J. Brotchie, M. Batty, E. Blakely, P. Hall and P. Newton (eds), Cities in Competition, Melbourne: Longman.

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National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

Kresl, P. (1995), ‘The Determinants of Urban Competition: A Survey’, in P. Kresl and G. Gappert (eds), North American Cities and the Global Economy, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 45–68. Ohmae, K. (1995), The End of the Nation State; The Rise of Regional Economies, New York: The Free Press. Rondinelli, A.R., Johnson Jr, J.H. and Kasarda, J.D. (1998), ‘The Changing Forces of Urban Economic Development: Globalization and City Competitiveness in the Twenty-first Century’, Cityscape 3 (3), US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Rozenblat, C. and Cicille, P. (2003), Les villes européennes, DATAR/CNRS. Sassen, S. (1991), The Global City, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Van den Berg, L., Braun, E. and van der Meer, J. (1997), Metropolitan Organising Capacity, Aldershot: Ashgate. Van den Berg, L., Braun, E. and van der Meer, J. (1998), National Urban Policies in the European Union. Responses to Urban Issues in the Fifteen Member States, Aldershot: Ashgate. Van den Berg, L., van der Meer, J. and Otgaar, A.H.J. (2000), The Attractive City, Rotterdam: Euricur, Erasmus University. World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Our Common Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 2

National Urban Policies: The Situation in the Mid-1990s1

2.1

Introduction

This chapter recapitulates the main findings of the comparative investigation into national urban policy in the European Union undertaken early in 1997 and published in 1998. As such it serves as a state-of-the-art description of the stitution of about seven years ago and as a starting and orientation point for the current exercise, which is focused on analysing changes since then. This recapitulation is based on 15 national reports, in each of which the national urban policies were discussed in the context of the national spatial pattern, the administrative framework, the financial framework and the urban issues and challenges as perceived at the national level. This chapter is first concerned with the national spatial development patterns and the national administrative and financial structures according to the 1997 situation. These issues, which are important as preconditions for urban development and policy-making, will not be dealt with in depth in this volume, unless important changes have taken place during the last seven years or can be expected to happen soon. After that, the attention is shifted to what national governments considered to be urban issues and challenges in the mid-1990s, followed by an overview of the main features of national urban policy in the member states of the European Union in that period. 2.2

National Spatial Development Patterns

Wide differences as well as striking similarities among the regions of a country and among the regions of different countries were found when comparing urban dynamics and spatial patterns internationally. A first conclusion, supported by international literature on this subject, was that the evolving urban systems and spatial patterns are largely nationally determined. National frontiers still form important dividing lines between sometimes far divergent spatial patterns, 1 This chapter is a slightly revised version of Chapter 17, ‘Synthesis’ (by Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Jan van der Meer) of Leo van den Berg, Erik Braun and Jan van der Meer (eds), National Urban Policies in the European Union (1998).

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National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

although their influence is diminishing. Some significant differences among the member states have to do with their degree of urbanisation, the balance in their urban system, the phase of urbanisation in which their larger cities find themselves, the social-economic position and performance of the large cities and the way that position has found its spatial expression. Differences as well as similarities in spatial structures, with special reference to the position of cities, will now be recapitulated briefly. Degree of Urbanisation A straightforward comparison of the degree of urbanisation is hardly possible, for almost all countries define ‘urbanised’ in their own way. Definitions vary from more than 200 inhabitants in Sweden to 10,000 and more in Germany, Greece and The Netherlands. If the degree of urbanisation is judged by the proportion of population living in (large) cities, the – hardly surprising – conclusion is that Europe counts some strongly urbanised countries (such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark) and some slightly urbanised ones (Sweden, Finland, Austria, Portugal and Ireland), as well as a number of countries occupying a position in-between (Italy, France, Spain, Greece and Luxembourg). In spite of wide differences a common trend can be observed, namely a continuous concentration of people and economic activities in major urban regions, which therefore go on expanding their sphere of influence: ‘metropolisation’ appears to have become a common development. In the 1980s and early 1990s in particular, even the least urbanised countries registered a strong expansion of both the largest cities and the regional centres. Increasing numbers of Europeans have come to live in an urban environment and this process seems to have been intensified. In some still less urbanised countries (like Spain, Portugal, Austria, Greece, Finland) the ongoing concentration is confining some rural areas to the periphery. National Urban Systems In most countries a balanced urban system, in which the various levels of the urban hierarchy are adequately filled, is lacking. Often one major city (always the capital city) dominates the urban system. London, Paris, Dublin, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Vienna, Stockholm, Helsinki, Athens and Luxembourg are such distinct principal cities. In Spain, Madrid and Barcelona are almost on an equal level, while Germany (after Berlin), Belgium (after Brussels), Italy (after Rome), and The Netherlands have some equivalent cities and/or a more balanced urban system. In several countries, the intermediate level between the principal city and other cities is largely or completely missing. That is notably true of France, Austria, Denmark, Ireland and Finland. Sometimes the intermediate level includes only one or a few cities (like Porto in Portugal, Gothenburg and Malmö in Sweden, and Thessalonica in Greece). Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom do enjoy a relatively balanced hierarchy in which the

National Urban Policies: The Situation in the Mid-1990s

17

various urban size classes are reasonably represented. In most countries a relatively large proportion of the national population is spatially concentrated in a few urban regions (Table 2.1) Table 2.1 Population concentration in major urban regions Luxembourg Denmark Ireland Austria Finland Portugal Greece Sweden Belgium France United Kingdom Spain Netherlands

55% in 1 34% in 1 28% in 1 25% in 1 22% in 1 39% in 2 37% in 2 35% in 3 37% in 2 16% in 1 12% in 1 22% in 2 25% in 4

1995 1995 1996 1991 1996 1994 1991 1996 1995 1990 1991 1995 1996

Source: van den Berg Braun and van der Meer, 1998.

Urban concentration seems to proceed fastest in those countries that came relatively late to urbanisation, mostly countries that are peripheral to the European heartland, such as Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy (the south part), Greece and Austria. Dominance in size coincides often, but not always, with economic dominance. In most countries the principal city is also economically dominant. Italy and Germany are exceptions with Milan vying with Rome for economic supremacy and Berlin is economically dominated by several other German cities like Frankfurt and Munich. Stages of Urbanisation The stage of urbanisation in which the cities in a country find themselves determines what kinds of problem confront these cities and also what is the policy to cope with them. The problems of old industrial and seaport cities at a stage of decline are hardly comparable with those of fast-growing cities in countries that until recently were largely agrarian. Europe encompasses the full range of urban development phases. The Finnish cities are at the urbanisation stage: Helsinki is one of the fastest growing major cities in the EU. Urbanisation also marks many (but not the largest) cities in Southern Europe. Suburbanisation – the stage at which the urban region is growing, mostly thanks to suburban growth in ‘ring towns’ – was the commonest trend in the

18

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

early 1990s, although it was not equally advanced everywhere. Some countries have already been suburbanising for a long time (especially such old industrial countries as the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Luxembourg), and some have recently joined in. Suburbanisation is a relatively new phenomenon (since the 1970s) in the cities in northern Italy, France, Austria, Spain, Denmark, and even newer (since the 1980s) in Portugal, Ireland, southern Italy, Greece (Athens especially), Sweden and Finland. From from this list it is clear that the part of Europe that was in the vanguard of industrialisation and was the first to attain prosperity is at a more advanced stage of urbanisation than the areas that industrialised later. A number of European cities suffer from disurbanisation (or de-urbanisation), that is, the decline of the entire urban region substantially brought about by the decline of the core city, a development often attended by problems of social and economic structure. The affected cities are mostly old industrial and port cities, characterised by one or a few dominating traditional manufacturing sectors; examples can be found in United Kingdom (most large urban regions), the Walloon region, the Ruhr Area, the new German states, Italy (the north), Spain (among others, the region of Bilbao), France (Marseilles) and some Austrian cities. With the exception of the new German states, these cities have often achieved considerable industrial growth in the past but face difficulties in compensating for the decline in basic manufacturing or other dominating (port) activities by attracting new business activities. Various large European cities suffer from the phenomenon of disurbanisation and the related social-economic problems (notably unemployment and its social aftermath). Finally, some places have entered the stage of reurbanisation, the stage in which cities begin to pick up (after a period of decline) thanks to new chances offered by new growth industries which prefer a metropolitan environment and/or effective revitalisation policy. Reurbanisation has been recorded in Vienna (urban renewal), Stockholm (economic growth), Milan, some major Dutch and German cities, among other places. Social Exclusion and Spatial Segregation: Core versus Ring Growth and decline are the results of a complexity of mutually reinforcing or opposing forces. Theories on the subject, which seem to be largely confirmed by the national reports, suggest that economic growth and the resulting prosperity are inseparable from urban development. However, that hypothesis does not seem to apply to some areas such as the south of Italy and some old industrial zones in the European heartland and in eastern Germany. In those areas the cities either cannot develop under their own steam or are required to make intensive efforts to do so and the private sector is very cautious with investment. Another observation is that a period of urban prosperity is often followed by a period in which negative aspects disturb or jeopardise urban development and economic growth. The negative aspects can take various forms, depending among other things on the

National Urban Policies: The Situation in the Mid-1990s

19

phase of urbanisation, the excess supply of workers, the qualitatively trailing supply of labour, the disintegration of the economic basis, congestion, a less attractive living environment, etc. The situations can increase social discrepancies among the demographic categories in an urban region. Such discrepancies often find expression in the spatial pattern. A feature of most urban regions is that the problem categories are left in the least attractive parts of the core city, while the intermediate classes move to suburban municipalities. That situation is typical of, among other countries, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Denmark and, to a lesser extent, Austria and Sweden (the ‘second cities’ only). In other urban regions, the socially weak are, on the contrary, found mostly in the suburbs (France, Finland, Stockholm). Finally, there are countries where the social discrepancies manifest themselves in the core cities as well as in the suburbs (Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece). In most national reports it was stated that social segregation puts the economic function of cities in jeopardy. The tenor is that urban regions in particular are increasingly beset with serious social problems, mostly through extensive unemployment. That tendency was recently (the early 1990s) observed even in such newly urbanised countries as Ireland, Finland, Sweden and Austria. Administrative and Financial Frameworks The member states also differ widely in administrative structure. Two main types can be distinguished: unitary states (12) and federal states (three), but these main types show great diversity, for instance in the number of administrative levels. Moreover, the roles, functions, competencies, services, budgets, income sources, expenditures, etc. tend to be differently divided between the administrative levels of a country. As a detailed overview of administrative and financial aspects would stretch beyond the framework of this inventory, only a bird’s eye view of aspects, which may help to compare and interpret national urban policy, is presented here. Once again, this overview dates from 1997, so changes may have taken place in since. Administrative Structures Of the 12 unitary states, France, Italy and Spain have four levels of administration. In the 1970s the regional level in these countries was considerably empowered, primarily to decentralise certain competencies. In 1978 Spain reinforced the position of the 17 ‘autonomous communities’ to such an extent that a ‘quasifederal constitutional setting’ can be said to have ensued (Pola, 1996). Three-tier structures are found in the three northern countries and The Netherlands. In the 1990s Ireland and Greece followed thanks to the creation of an intermediate, regional level. In most of these countries the regional level counts for less than the local level in task load, budget and influence. That is specifically true of the three northern countries, where local autonomy is rather strong. Finally as

20

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

far as the unitary states are concerned, there are the two-tier states: the United Kingdom, Portugal and Luxembourg. The United Kingdom was not fully twotier, however. Above the diversity of local administrative units (London boroughs, metropolitan districts, unitary councils and districts), in the non-metropolitan parts of England there is an intermediate level, the counties. The intermediate level in the metropolitan regions (in the shape of metropolitan counties and regional councils) was abolished in the 1980s. In addition, the United Kingdom is the only member state where the central authority has retrieved responsibilities from the local administrative levels. In Portugal the creation of regions has been under discussion since the 1970s, so far without concrete results. In the federal states of Germany, Austria and Belgium the intermediate level (Länder in the German-speaking countries) has responsibilities that compare to those of national governments in the unitary states. Austria has three administrative levels. Germany has two levels in the city states of Hamburg and Bremen, three levels in the larger cities in the remaining Länder, and a second local level in the non-urban areas to coordinate the smaller municipalities. Belgium has four administrative levels. It has the most complicated administrative structure within Europe, with not only three regional units (Flanders, Walloon and the Brussels region) but also three cultural units (Dutch-, French- and Germanspeaking communities), which do not fully coincide. Centralisation versus Decentralisation: Urban Autonomy The increasing decentralisation of responsibilities in some countries has already been referred to. However, decentralisation affects the positions of the cities differently. The opportunities for local authorities to develop an autonomous policy are still relatively limited in France and Italy (although increasing in both countries), and very constrained in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal and Greece. The northern countries and Luxembourg, where local autonomy is in fact the foundation of the administrative system, represent the other extreme (although in Denmark the national government is increasingly assuming control). Relatively much autonomy for the local authorities is also a characteristic of the three federal states and Spain. Where municipalities enjoy a high degree of autonomy the adjustment among municipalities in the same urban region tends to be more difficult, especially in matters of economics or transport. Fragmentation of local policy (reported for Spain, for instance) and intra-regional competition (in most countries) work counter-productively on the development of functional urban regions. Urban Finance The degree of local autonomy is largely tied up with financial relations. This topic appeared to be extremely complex and to deal with it in more detail was beyond the scope of the 1997 exercise. Therefore, some indicative results only will

National Urban Policies: The Situation in the Mid-1990s

21

be presented. There seems to be an almost unlimited variety of ways to acquire local revenue. Local taxation is an important source, but not always the most important, as is evident from the situation in six member states. In Swedish and Spanish cities, local tax returns account for over three-fifths of the total municipal budget. Austria, Denmark, Finland and France follow closely (about half). Income from taxation is relatively low (about one-tenth) in The Netherlands, Greece, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom (Pola, 1996; Committee of the Regions, 1996). However, high tax returns do not always mean more autonomy, for often the levy of taxes is merely the execution of a task imposed by a higher layer of government. Among the purely local taxes, property tax is the most common, albeit in very divergent forms. Income taxes exclusively for local use occur in the Scandinavian countries and Belgium. Local business tax is usual in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Its application is very diverse, for instance on value added, jobs, ‘fiscal potential’, profits, etc. Finally, local authorities can levy taxes on specific items of consumption as well as on specific transactions. Other important sources of income are grants and subsidies allotted by higher administrative levels. Their share in municipal income varies from very low in Sweden, Austria, Spain and Germany (about one-fifth) to very high in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and The Netherlands (between three- and fourfifths). In many countries, block grants have gradually been replaced by specific grants. In Germany, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands a considerable proportion is still paid in the shape of specific grants. The third, ‘non-tax-non-grant’, source of income consists of charges for services and profits from commercial transactions. Especially in Luxembourg, Germany and Austria, this category contributes considerbly to municipal income (over three-tenths). In several countries such revenues are needed to compensate for the loss of income from the state which attends the decentralisation of tasks. Furthermore, the private sector is increasingly involved in the implementation of policy, for instance through public–private partnerships (in many countries) and the privatisation of public services (in particular in the United Kingdom). Finally, borrowing is an accepted way to find funds for investment in most (but not all) member states. From various national reports, the existing national financial frameworks can lead to biased relations because insufficient account is taken of the measure in which the spending of ‘impoverished’ local units is covered by revenue. Core cities in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium and The Netherlands in particular appear to encounter difficulties of that kind, which can frustrate their policy actions. In The Netherlands, France, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Sweden and Luxembourg methods of equalisation or compensation have been adopted to relieve or solve such problems.

22

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

The Emergence of Metropolitan Authorities In most countries the existing administrative framework is considered as a complicating factor for the adjustment of supra-local tasks on the metropolitan level. The counter-productive effects of intra-regional competition (for companies and people, or by means of tax facilities) are also pointed out. Some form of administration and management on the level of the functional urban region seems an attractive proposition in that context. European practice, however, displays very few successful examples. Admittedly, in some countries efforts were made in the 1980s or 1990s to stimulate the creation of metropolitan bodies. The legal foundations for it have been provided in Italy (for the 10 largest metropolises) and Portugal (for Lisbon and Porto), but not much actual progress was reported. In The Netherlands plans to form ‘city provinces’ (with regional as well as local tasks to avoid a new tier) for the largest urban regions were cancelled because of a complete lack of community support in the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In Spain (in Barcelona and Valencia) and Germany (in the Ruhr area, Frankfurt, Hanover, Mittlerer Neckar and Berlin/Brandenburg) voluntary public–public partnerships have been concluded, but with rather narrow taskloads and responsibilities. In some cities the functional metropolitan region coincides more or less with a regional administrative unit, which presumably should favour internal adjustment (among others in Madrid, Bilbao, Stockholm, Vienna, Brussels, Hamburg and Bremen). For the Brussels region that is no more than theory since the competency for cultural policies is lacking. The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Denmark and Spain have experimented with forms of metropolitan administration since the 1960s. However, these regional authorities were all abolished in the 1980s for various reasons (political arguments, lack of success, confusion of tasks and responsibilities). In the United Kingdom an authority on the level of the former Greater London Region was proposed (and meanwhile established as Greater London Authority). France is the exception with its Urban Communities. These regional bodies exist alongside the municipal authorities (communes) and have assumed a significant proportion of the metropolitan tasks without encroaching upon the formal autonomy of the communes. Founded in the 1960s – and not abolished as elsewhere – that formula now seems to be successful (in Lille and Lyon, for example). However, not every city can take advantage of this situation (for example, Marseilles). In most other countries the gap in supra-municipal administration is filled by (obligatory or voluntary) cooperation, for instance for the purpose of joint exploitation of public services, or stimulated by European policy, which is primarily addressed to regions.

National Urban Policies: The Situation in the Mid-1990s

2.3

23

Urban Issues and Challenges in National Perspectives

The general conclusion of the 1997 investigation was that in more and more member states attention was being paid to the position and the role of the cities in regional and national development. Of course, the measure of attention is bound up with the degree of urbanisation and the administrative structure. In the federal states of Germany and Belgium many competencies with respect to urban development are vested in the Länder (Germany) or the regions (Belgium), so that the national government looks at the cities from a certain distance. In the other countries of advancing and advanced urbanisation, the importance of a growing number of urban potentials and challenges has been recognised for some time at the national level. In some of the less urbanised countries the debate about the position of cities in national development is underway. At first, attention tended to focus on the growing social-economic problems, but increasingly member states also stress the potential of cities for stimulating the (regional and national) economy. Cumulating Social Problems in Medium-sized and Large Cities Social-economic problems of cities were and still are of important national concern. The investigation confirmed that a growing number of cities were confronted with such fundamental social problems as unemployment, poverty, (youth) crime, arrears in education, drugs consumption and the integration of minorities and persons claiming asylum. The fight against unemployment in particular had a high priority in almost all countries and persistent unemployment was one of the problems that were increasingly concentrated in urban areas. In the early-industrialised north European countries and in the metropolitan regions in Italy and Spain, concentration of unemployment is a well-known phenomenon, but in the other member states, too, it appears to be increasingly an urban concern. In Greece, for instance, unemployment and poverty used to occur mainly in rural areas, but progressive urbanisation has clearly caused a shift to the urban regions. In Finland and Ireland as well, the unemployment problem is shifting from the periphery to the cities. In short, whatever the degree of urbanisation that the member states of the European Union had reached, unemployment notably scourged the cities in the whole of Europe. Besides unemployment, the integration of minorities and asylum-seekers into the urban society claimed much attention from national and local governors. These social groups appear to live mostly in the cities, and their intensive congretation in cities and spatial concentration within cities obstructs the integration. The traditional inflow in many member states from other parts of the world had greatly increased under the influence of the war in former Yugoslavia, especially in the cities of south Germany, north Italy and Austria, which were already very attractive to former Eastern Bloc countries.

24

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

In a growing number of member states, urban safety was becoming increasingly important, and in its wake so were the problems of drug consumption and (youth) crime. Evidently, citizens in the larger cities felt increasingly insecure. The nature and intensity of other social problems besetting the cities, such as the concentration of educational arrears, appeared to be consistent with the degree of urbanisation. That all these social worries were to be found notably in the cities was an interesting finding. But what caused the typically metropolitan problems, explicitly recognised by national governments of the member states, was their mutual reinforcement and their accumulation in certain neighbourhoods of the core cities or in the suburbs. The danger of social-economic and spatial segregation, a situation in which exclusion from the labour market, educational level, ethnic descent and social origin raise barriers to a certain group within the urban community, was recognised in all (to some degree) urbanised member states. Balanced National Urban System In some countries the national authorities attach great value to a balanced development of the national urban system. Their interest springs on the one hand from the desire to limit regional discrepancies in economic and social development, and on the other from the growing recognition of urban centres as potential engines of (peripheral) backward areas. France particularly looks upon the biased relation between Paris and the other major cities as an obstacle to the latter’s development and as a threat to the national competitive position. The Finns regard a more balanced spread of urbanisation as a comparative advantage. Germany, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and more recently Belgium are all to some extent striving for a balanced national urban development. Infrastructure and National Housing In Spain, Portugal and Greece urbanisation has only gained momentum in the last few decades. Their governments have had little hold on the urbanisation process, and there was no question of coordinated spatial development. Through the lack of coordination and the speed of the urbanisation process, the pressure on the existing urban infrastructure (road network, public transport) has risen to unprecedented levels, despite significant investments in the late 1980s and 1990s. With the access to urban centres and hence their economic potential in danger – even more so because most of the population travels by car – the national governments in those countries naturally very much want to raise the level of the infrastructure provisions. Despite a long-standing planning tradition, the rapid urbanisation in Spain (in, for example, Barcelona) has also created a restricted housing market, the metropolitan areas having a great shortage of adequate and reasonably priced housing. In Portugal, too, housing was high among the government’s priorities. However, other countries also stressed the developments in

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25

the housing market: for instance, the federal government of Germany mentioned the availability of affordable housing as a priority. Urbanisation, Accessibility and the Environment: Growing Awareness of Sustainability The advanced urbanisation in the Union makes sustainable development extremely important, especially in the urban regions. In such regions accessibility, quality of the environment and economic development are closely interwoven. In all member states these aspects are perceived as important urban issues and at the same time give direction to some of the policy responses. In Spain, Portugal and Greece the accent was mainly on infrastructure and accessibility, which does not detract from the growing importance of the environment. In more urbanised countries like The Netherlands and Germany, and also in Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the value attached to the environment rises all the time, which, however, does not make accessibility less important. It does mean that high standards were set for new infrastructure and that much attention was also owed to excellent access by public transport, especially in urban centres. Cultural Heritage In many of the member states cities are regarded as elements of the national cultural heritage. Some cities represent a unique and increasingly valued combination of history, tradition and characteristic buildings and conservation of historical and cultural values is a major concern. But the conservation and maintenance of such carriers of cultural heritage can also contribute to the attractiveness of cities and the appeal of the residential and living environment. In short, cultural heritage has acquired economic value as well as value as a location condition and in the shape of urban tourism. 2.4

National Policy Responses in the 1997 Investigation

In Chapter 1 the distinction between explicitly city-oriented policy and policy measures that, while having a great impact on cities, are not explicitly tailored to them was explained. These policies are themes of sector policy or specific groups in society. Some countries try to pursue an explicit urban policy. The vision underlying that policy and the instruments that were put in for its implementation are dealt with below.

26

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

The United Kingdom, France and The Netherlands: Examples of Explicit National Urban Policy The United Kingdom, France and The Netherlands had advanced most in substantiating the (heightened) interest for cities into explicitly city-oriented policy. In the United Kingdom such a policy had been conducted since the late 1960s, but the approach, the priorities and the financing have altered in the course of years. The policy in force in 1997 (City Challenge, initiated in 1992 and in 1994 combined with the Single Regeneration Budget) emphasised the economic revitalisation of urban regions. As in the United Kingdom, in France the foundation for explicit national urban policy was laid in the 1960s with the policy of Métropoles d’Équilibre, continued since 1990 in the form of the Chartres d’objectifs (large cities charters), which came under the Ministry of Public Works and the national physical planning office (DATAR). The latter body is also responsible for the policy of Réseaux de Villes (urban networks). In addition, the socially-oriented measures of national urban policy have been combined in the Contrats de Villes (urban contracts policy), often jointly with the Programmes d’Aménagement Concerté du Territoire (Integrated Territorial Planning Programmes). In The Netherlands, policy-makers had already shown early interest in explicit urban development, in particular in physical planning. In the late 1980s this explicit attention on urban issues was broadened to other policy sectors as well, mainly because of the aggravating social-economic problems of the cities. On the initiative of the four largest cities the so-called Grotestedenbeleid (major city policy) was launched, in 1994. This policy can be considered the first comprehensive explicit national urban policy in The Netherlands. Visions and Objectives Underlying Explicit National Urban Policy In the 1980s in the United Kingdom the focus of national urban policy was on the economic performance of the cities, economic and physical regeneration being key concepts of policy. The adjustment to the City Challenge policy did not shake the foundations of that vision, but served to give investment in, and preservation of, social and human capital its proper place. In France most efforts and resources have been directed towards combatting social discrepancies amongst and within cities. The Contrats de Villes focus on fighting the concentration of arrears and spatial and social segregation, whereas the policy pursued to reinforce the position of medium-sized cities (Large City Charter), is economic in nature: its main objective is to restore balance to the national urban system. The Dutch major-city policy is concerned not only with the problems of the major cities but also with their economic potential. The government regards cities as the engines of the national economic, cultural and social development, and

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27

has woken up to the fact that this motor function is impeded by social problems. The major-city policy is supposed to change that situation. National Urban Policy: Top-down and Bottom-up? The relation between the national government and the local authorities determines to a high degree the principles and implementation of policy. The choice of a policy directly addressing cities is inspired by (among other considerations) the belief that an area-based policy can deal with the specific problems of cities better than other types of policy, and thus increase its effectiveness. On the whole, the position of the national government in the United Kingdom towards the cities was reinforced in the 1980s, giving it more control over local policy. Nevertheless the government’s intention is to have its explicit national urban policy given substance on the local or regional level, the initiative being not by definition with the local government but with local and regional partners, often a coalition of public, semi-public and private parties. These development corporations are required to define a wider vision for their area and to link programmes, projects, resources and mechanisms to that vision in a strategic way. On that basis, the cities have to vie for payments from the available funds. In France, the local authorities were given more room to maneouvre in the 1980s. However, the influence of the national government is still large, one explanation for which is the traditional centralist structure of the French public administration. Representatives of the national government exert substantial influence on regional and local development, inter alia through the allocation of resources, specifically in the Chartres d’objectifs but also in the Contrats de Villes. The Dutch national government hopes that the major-city policy will create the right conditions to enable local authorities to tackle the problems themselves. The national government has reserved to itself a coordinating, and in some areas a controlling, part but the cities have to give substance to the policy. The Integrality of Explicit National Urban Policy In the United Kingdom the principle was that integrality should be encouraged at the national and local level. The four ministries most involved in the national urban policy (Environment, Employment, Training and Industry) worked together in the newly-created Government Offices in the Regions. To stimulate cooperation on the local level, only qualitatively good and comprehensive plans were accepted for financing. The philosophy underlying that strategy is that competition between local plans will push up their quality. In France, integrality is an aspect of the Contrats de Villes, which are put up for discussion among the parties involved, who then try to reach agreement on a joint approach. However, integration referred only to social questions, for integration with economic policy was not guaranteed. The Chartres d’objectifs do not aim at

28

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

integral policy on the local level, but great store is set by an integral development of the national urban system. The medium-sized cities involved are committed to choosing an economic specialisation for the sake of proper national spread. One spearhead of the Dutch major-city policy is to make policy more comprehensive, not only at the national level in terms of input from the (11!) ministries involved, but also at the local level, where bottlenecks in the approach to metropolitan problems are just as likely to develop when one-sector initiatives are not properly adjusted. A comprehensive approach implies a restyling of administrative culture at the national as well as the local level. Explicit National Urban Policy and the Channelling of Financial Flows The explicit policy in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands is supported in the two countries by different methods of financing. In the United Kingdom, the City Challenge programme has been completed with the Single Regeneration Budget, in which all urban regeneration funds of the above-mentioned ministries have been combined. Moreover, the funding of local initiatives was not a matter of course. Several local plans competed for the available resources (31 out of 57 proposals were accepted). In The Netherlands, too, the idea of a fund coupled to the major-city policy was considered, but in the end the decision was to channel the financial flows within each department concerned and give the municipalities more freedom of expenditure, thus widening their scope for independent policymaking. In The Netherlands as well the quality of the local plans is tested by the national government. In France, local authorities are less free to dispose of their means. The state furnishes the money needed and also monitors its spending. Spatial Scope: City or Urban Region? The spatial scale of the Dutch major-city policy is in certain respects an impediment. The policy focuses on municipalities rather than on urban regions. Within the city borders there is room for spatial flexibility. In the United Kingdom, the explicit national urban policy is not tied to administrative borders: the national government deals with ‘urban areas’. In France, too, the spatial scope is wider, because the state bargains with the regional bodies and allocates its resources through the regions. That spatial flexibility is indeed necessary, since certain problems cannot always be solved within the borders of an administrative spatial unit, but the solution might be found in a neighbouring commune. Ireland: Urban Renewal Act The national policy in Ireland was not comparable to the explicit policies conducted in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and France. Most Irish national policy affecting cities was sector-based policy, but Ireland also pursued explicit urban policy of a kind in the shape of the Urban Renewal Programme

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29

ensuing from the Urban Renewal Acts of 1986 and 1987. These Acts focus first and foremost on the redevelopment of urban areas, in particular the Irish inner cities. The first emphasis is on physical regeneration, but schooling opportunities and the quality of the living environment also figure in the programme, although the financial structure of the policy has stimulated mostly commercial development (offices). At first, the policy addressed only a few zones in five cities, but in 1997 100 programmes were operative in 35 urban centres. In contrast to, for instance, Dutch urban renewal, which addressed not only the cities but all local units. Irish renovation is mainly directed to the inner city areas. This policy was co-funded from the European Union. Spatial Planning and Sector Policies Alongside explicit urban policy responses, in 1997 we found that the United Kingdom, France and The Netherlands pursued a broad range of other national policies that have a major impact on cities. These policy responses still took up a great part of the policies that influence urban development. In the other member states (with the exception of Ireland mentioned above) national responses to urban issues and challenges had not yet been shaped into explicit national urban policy. In these countries the national policy responses were to be found in the spatial planning policy and other sector policy measures. Italy and Portugal: Cities in Discussion In Italy, until the 1990s there had been very little interest in the problems of cities. Since 1990 a different course has been taken: a law has been passed to open the way for administration on the level of the metropolitan region, though no final decision was taken in any of the selected urban areas. The remaining sector policy also takes the cities into account. The government aimed at more integration in land management, urban planning and environmental policies, to achieve the sustainable development of urban areas. Explicit national urban policy had become a Portuguese concern in the 1990s. The possibility of a more explicit national urban policy was being considered, in particular the coordination of such a policy on the national level, among the ministries most involved. The Ministry of Equipment, Planning and Territorial Administration (MEPAT) coordinates a programme initiated in 1994, a programme explicitly oriented to the development of urban centres outside the metropolitan regions of Lisbon and Porto. In a sense, the EXPO ’98 project was an exponent of national urban policy, because it was an initiative of the national government, which was also the leading partner in the firm EXPO ’98 which carried out the project. The government considered national urban policy a matter of growing importance, because it perceived a distinct role for the larger cities in the internationalisation of the Portuguese economy. Such a policy can be implemented only if, in the eyes of the government, certain conditions are fulfilled.

30

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

The Special Position of the Federal States and Spain As a result of the administrative organisation in the federal states of Germany, Belgium and Austria, as well the administrative organisation in Spain, the national governments in these states are not in a position to pursue explicit urban policy to the same extent as the United Kingdom, France or The Netherlands. The intermediary level of government comprises most of the competences for urban policy. In fact, some of these ‘regional’ authorities can be considered ‘urban regions’: Hamburg and Bremen are Länder, Brussels is one of the three Belgian regions, the Madrid region is an autonomous community and the Vienna region is one of the Austrian states. In Germany, most competencies are on the level of the 16 states and on the local level. At the national level there is some influence on urban development, more particularly by formulating the guidelines and principles for spatial development. The most important task of the federal government is to create the marginal conditions for the lower authorities, and notably to put certain matters of urban interest on the agenda, such as the importance of sustainable urban development. The German government tries to give increasing substance to that task in view of the intensifying international competition between cities and the necessary spatial integration of the ‘new German cities’. In Belgium many of the responsibilities concerned with urban development are vested in the regional authorities. Under the physical planning policy of the Belgian state, relatively much has been invested in the infrastructure needed for cities (among other things, the connection to the European high-speed rail network). Before Belgium became a federal state there was not really a national vision on urban development, nor has federalisation changed that. This is changing now on the regional level. Concern for the situation of cities has increased and a vision for urban development is being developed as a first step to a more comprehensive approach. The measures carried through in the early 1990s were mostly sector bounded, and few efforts were made to harmonise policy initiatives. In the fight against urban poverty the Flemish government integrated a number of individual measures into the Social Impulse Fund (SIF). The regional government allocated funding to the cities with the largest problems on the basis of locally-formulated comprehensive plans. In Austria urban development became a concern during the 1990s, when suburbanisation increasingly encroached on the scarce space and increased the need for infrastructure. The national government drew up a framework for spatial development and gathered and distributed information, but the cities remained highly autonomous in their policy-making. Given the progressive suburbanisation and the fact that houses tended to be built on generous plots of land, the expectation was that the national government would place coordinated spatial development higher on the political agenda. In Spain, where the responsibilities are highly decentralised to the autonomous communities, there was no explicit national urban policy either. But sector policy

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in Spain is very relevant to urban development. In the National Infrastructure Plan, the connections between cities and also internal urban transport are important aspects. The consideration is that external and internal accessibility is a necessary condition for economic development. In addition, national housing policy – intended to relieve the tension on the housing market – expressly addresses the cities. The national environmental policy, too, was clearly concerned with the position of the larger cities. However, all policy measures sprang from sector policy and, as in other countries, the (seven) major cities have pointed out the drawbacks for the quality of urban development. They argued for an approach in which the major cities themselves can take decisions and thus stimulate a more comprehensive urban development. Nordic Countries: Explicit Regional Policies with Increasing Attention to Cities In Denmark, Sweden and Finland, until the 1990s urban development had given less rise to explicit urban policy. In these counties the main focus was on explicit regional policies. The functioning of cities is becoming an increasingly important part in these policies. More and more, cities are seen as stimulators of regional development. In Sweden a high degree of local autonomy is laid down in the Constitution and, moreover, Sweden is not yet very urbanised: the national government has thus felt no urge to conduct an explicit urban policy. Nevertheless, in the context of regional policy, a study was made of the problems of the major metropolitan regions of Sweden, the conclusion of which was that a favourable development of the cities could also benefit the development of the regions and the nation as a whole. In Finland the role of cities is placed in the context of regional policy as well: however, some informal research was carried out into the aspects of a more explicit urban policy. One point made in that research is that the cities are in potential the engines of future economic growth. The government appointed a working group, consisting of representatives of the ministries and the cities, which will study urban questions. One important task of the working group was to exchange experiences and best practices, and another was to draw up a document in preparation for a more explicit urban policy. In Denmark, Copenhagen is by far the largest city: with one-third of the population living in the Greater Copenhagen area, a policy explicitly addressing cities is a delicate matter. Internationalisation and increasing awareness of the environment are important aspects of Danish physical planning and regional policy. Against that background, the government encouraged the creation of strategic networks between cities (exchange of knowledge, check on unhealthy competition) and the planning of urban and regional development from a national point of view.

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National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

The Impulse of European Programmes: The Greek Experience In Greece, an explicit national urban policy did not yet figure on the national agenda in the 1990s, although Athens has benefited from national decisionmaking. The reorganisation of the administrative system in the 1990s implied that it has become possible to make a first step towards explicit national urban policy. The Greek cities have been given more attention within sector policies such as transport policy. Moreover, extensive support from the European Union put urban development higher up on the national political agenda and policy measures with a clear urban dimension were initiated in the framework of European programmes. Bilateral Consultation in Luxembourg It is understandable that Luxembourg did (and does) not pursue explicit national urban policy. Policies with regard to the Luxembourg City were mainly formulated at the local level. National sector policies, in particular housing and physical planning, are coordinated through bilateral consultation between the national and local levels. Increasing Attention to Intercity Links: Urban Networks In a growing number of member states the physical and ‘material’ connections among the cities in the national urban system have received high priority. A large part of the national infrastructure investment in Spain goes to cities’ external and internal accessibility. In Germany the links between cities play an important role in the integration process of cities in the former German Democratic Republic. Moreover, in most of the countries the focus is not only on national links between cities, but increasingly on the links with other cities in Europe as well. The Trans European Networks policy has been integrated into the national policy framework of many countries. In France, the national government pays special attention to cities situated on main European corridors and to those with an important logistic function. The Dutch physical planning policy and transport and infrastructure policy attributes considerable weight to the accessibility and the national and international connections of the major cities. The Danish, German and Italian national governments promote the starting-up of strategic networks between cities. The Öresund link between Copenhagen and Malmö is another example of a new – physical – link.

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2.5

33

National Urban Policy in Perspective

Ring Zones around Major Cities Show Strongest Growth In spite of wide differences in the degree of urbanisation, the structure of the national urban systems and the development phase at which the various urban regions found themselves during the mid-1990s, there were some similarities among the member states (see also Table 2.2). Urbanisation was advancing most rapidly in those countries that were until then hardly urbanised. Urban growth manifested itself more in the ring zones around the major cities than in the core cities themselves. In all instances, the ring zones of the largest cities were the fastest growers. The result is a progressive concentration of activity in the largest urban regions. That process was especially striking in the countries with relatively late urbanisation. Exclusion and Segregation as Major Urban Problems Social exclusion and spatial segregation in urban regions are major problems in quite a number of countries. The highest concentrations of problems such as unemployment, low residential quality, crime, vandalism, health concern were found in urban regions, often in the central cores, sometimes in the suburbs and sometimes in both (see Table 2.2). There are sizable differences in the degree to which major cities are threatened by social, living-climate and safety problems. The typically urban problems seemed to develop fast in those countries that until recently had remained unaffected. Increasing Policy Decentralisation Differences in administrative and financial structure within Europe appeared to be exceptionally wide. These differences affect urban development and the nature and form of the national policy with respect to the cities. On the other hand, the administrative and financial structures are highly dynamic. The 1980s and 1990s have shown drastic administrative changes in at least seven of the 15 member states. With the exception of the federalisation of Belgium, almost all changes have given shape to a wish for more decentralisation of competencies in those countries which in the past had a strictly centralist government system. Another exception is the United Kingdom where, conversely, the central authority had assumed more power at the expense of the competencies of local authorities. There are wide discrepancies in the degree of autonomy between the cities of Europe. Autonomy ranges from all-but-none in Greece to all-but-complete in Sweden. Although the tendency towards decentralisation is manifest, that does not invariably mean that the formal responsibilities and opportunities to conduct an autonomous and integral policy on the municipal or metropolitan level have been much extended.

Table 2.2 Urbanisation, spatial patterns, social problem concentration, large cities and national populations in EU-countries (1990–1997)

Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden United Kingdom

Degree of urbanisation

Balanced system

Principal city

Problem concentration

Cities >100,000

low high high low average high average low average high high low average low high

no yes no no no yes no no yes yes no yes no yes

yes no yes yes yes no yes yes no yes no yes no yes yes

Inner cities Inner cities Inner cities Inner cities Suburbs Inner cities Both Both Both Suburbs Inner cities Both Both Both Inner cities

6 8 4 6 46 83 6 3 45 0 23 5 48 11 57

1 2 1 1 3 8 1 1 4 0 2 1 3 1 7

7.8 10.0 5.2 5.0 58.0 81.3 10.3 3.6 57.9 0.4 15.5 9.3 39.3 8.9 58.1

351

36

370.6

EU total Source: van den Berg, Braun and van der Meer, 1998.

Urban regions >1 million

National population

Year

1991 1995 1995 1996 1990 1997 1991 1996 1991 1996 1996 1991 1995 1996 1991

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Decentralisation and Local Budget Cuts Concerning municipal finance, no clear trends were perceivable although the observation was warranted that, as decentralisation proceeds, the grants allocated by the state are reduced. On the other hand, specific grants have been gradually supplanted by generic grants. The cities have been forced to compensate the reduction by raising or introducing new charges, levying local taxes or involving the private sector (public–private partnership and the privatisation of public services). Although in some countries the national government tried to adjust the means given to cities in proportion to their real needs by financial equalisation, in many countries the largest central cities find themselves in worse financial straits, and thus seriously hampered in the pursuit of their policy. Little Progress for Metropolitan Government Metropolitan authorities were few and far between in the EU. In 1997 we counted 25 of them, of which 10 were Communautées Urbaines (urban communities) in France. Of the others, some coincide with a higher administrative level and the remainder were created on a voluntary basis, with hardly any authority. In Italy and Portugal the law provides for the formation of metropolitan administrations, but no great progress was made with implementation. In The Netherlands, plans for creating ‘city provinces’ (combining regional and local tasks and responsibilities) have been cancelled due to lack of social support for administrative reorganisation in the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In the other countries, ‘urban management on the right level’ did not seem to have political priority. National Frameworks and Degree of Urbanisation Influence National Policy Response It is difficult to separate the national perception of and priority given to urban issues and challenges from the similarities and differences in the national spatialdevelopment pattern and the administrative and financial framework. In countries where much authority is vested in the local government, the national government will intervene less explicitly in the debate and give less attention to details. But in all those countries where urbanisation began early, the typical metropolitan problems have been high on the agenda for quite some time. Increasingly, the same problems have started to confront countries that were late urbanisers. In the strongly-urbanised Netherlands, for instance, the predicaments of cities were receiving full attention, but in countries where the urbanisation degree is still below the European average too (such as Portugal and Finland) the way things are developing was seen as a threat. Sustainable urban development has become a primary concern wherever a balance has to be struck between the economy, transport and the environment. The accents varied among the member states:

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National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

while Portugal and Greece and to a lesser degree Spain and Italy gave priority to the adjustment and expansion of urban infrastructure in response to their poorly coordinated urbanisation, Germany, The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries were more inclined to relate accessibility to the environment. The approach to urban problems, dependent as it is on the spatial development but also – and especially– on the administrative and financial organisation, has increasingly become a matter of public concern. In the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and France, urbanisation and the related social problems have given rise to an area-oriented, more-or-less comprehensive policy, targeted explicitly on cities. In Ireland too, an explicit national urban renewal policy has been adopted. In some countries where the urbanisation pattern might also have given rise to such an explicit national urban policy, the lack of it can be explained by the specific administrative situation (in the federal states Germany, Belgium, Austria and, albeit less so, Spain) or the spatial conditions (the relation between Copenhagen and the rest of Denmark, and the position of Luxembourg City within the Grand Duchy). In some less-urbanised, non-federal states (notably Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Greece and Finland) policy attention on urban development was increasing. The observation, however, was that in all member states, even those practising explicit national urban policy, most of the national policy that affects the cities was spatial-planning policy and sector policy. Within those policies, the relevance of the cities was increasingly recognized. But the adjustment of the policy efforts deserved more attention, for urbanisation is progressing in the European Union. The logical consequence is that national urban development appears increasingly on the political agendas of the national governments of the member states. Nevertheless, during the mid1990s the majority of EU-countries had not yet proceeded to a genuine, explicit, national urban policy. Vision, Strategy and Cooperation as Ingredients for a Balanced Urban Development The development of an explicit national urban policy seems highly relevant to the future prosperity of the member states. That position is strongly supported not only by the arguments offered above, but also by the fact that cities are increasingly functionally related. To achieve a balanced urban development, national governments need a clear vision of the preferable evolution of the cities. Naturally, that vision should do justice to the development potentialities of the cities and their important role in stimulating wider regional and national development. One of the conclusions of the 1997 investigation into national urban policies was that the voice of the cities should be heard in the development of a national urban policy. Cities themselves also need a clear vision and strategy as a basis for their own policy, to increase their own competitiveness and to deal adequately with their social problems. An indispensable element of such a strategy is good

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cooperation with the higher authorities, based on a jointly-evolved vision of urban development that is advisable at the local, regional and national levels. Such cooperation is conducive to the most efficient use of resources available for urban development. In that context it should be kept in mind that strategic cooperation between cities and the higher authorities cannot remain confined to one country, since united Europe is diligently striving to strengthen its own competitiveness. From the European point of view as well, and with the cities’ function as economic engines in mind, making the most of their economic potential is of the essence. What has Changed since 1997? The information and expectations in this chapter date from about seven years ago. Meanwhile, important changes may have taken place and the need is felt to discover what has happened since. Have national urban policies that do justice to the potentials as well as to the need to support the European cities in their efforts to prevent and solve the grave social problems which are confronting them been designed? In what way has the European Commission continued to show its concern with urban development? These and other questions will be answered in the chapters devoted to the national urban policy of the 15 ‘old’ member states. References Committee of the Regions (1996), Regional and Local Government in the European Union, Brussels. Pola, G. (1996), ‘Summary of Comparative Study’, in Local Public Finance in Europe (Seminar proceedings), Siena, Italy: European Commission DG XXI and Ministerio delle Finanze. Van den Berg, L., Braun, E. and van der Meer, J. (1998), National Urban Policies in the European Union. Responses to Urban Issues in the Fifteen Member States, Aldershot: Ashgate.

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Chapter 3

The Urban Dimension in European Policy: History, Actors and Programmes1 3.1

Introduction

Inside the European Commission (EC) there are different points of view on urban policy. Despite the fact that many Directorates General (DGs) produce policies that have an impact on cities, the only Directorate General involved practically in the development of an urban policy is the DG Regional Policy. Nevertheless, the focus of this DG is on regions and not on cities; regional policy clearly has priority over urban policy. Moreover, the fact that every six months a different member state has the Presidency of the European Union (EU) has a huge influence on the urban agenda of the Union, as urban policy’s position in the priority list changes continuously. Finally it should also be noticed that in each DG the role and importance of the city is quite different and this, of course, makes the possibility of discussing a common EU urban policy more difficult. In section 3.3 the role of some DGs and other institutional actors most involved in urban policy will be discussed. Despite the fact that in the last few years it has been realised that the development of an urban policy at the European level is necessary, most member states have never fully supported the strategy of the Commission simply because they were of the opinion that urban policy is a national matter. In the last 20 years, according to the principle of subsidiarity, there has been a tendency inside the EU towards decentralisation. Although the majority of member states like the idea of Brussels decentralising, it appears that most of them do not want this decentralisation to reduce their competences in favour of the regions. There is a lack of a common consensus among member states on the development of a European urban agenda. The next section will describe how the influence of the EU on cities has evolved in the last 10 years. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 will briefly review the present urban dimension of the different policies promoted by the EU, focusing on the DGs and other institutional actors (section 3.3) and on the programmes (section 3.4) specifically meant for cities. Section 3.5 will conclude the chapter. 1

This chapter was co-authored by Dr G. Mingardo.

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3.2

Development of the Urban Dimension in EU Policy

The Treaty gives the EU plenty of scope for the development of a regional policy but it gives no competence to develop an urban policy. Regional policy is one of the tools the Community uses to pursue the ‘reduction of disparities between the levels of development of the various regions’ as quoted in art. 158 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. The European Union’s Regional Policy is based on financial solidarity among member states: this means that part of the Community budget goes to less prosperous regions. On the other hand, the text of the Treaty does not consider the concept of city and, therefore, does not authorise the EC to develop a specific urban policy. A review of the most important steps made by the EC towards an urban policy can be made only in the wider context of the development of the EU Regional Policy.22 Concerning the urban dimension of the EU policy, five stages can be identified according to the Community programming periods. Stage 1 (1975–1988) From its beginning the European Community aimed to achieve political integration through economic integration. At the end of the 1960s it was clear that this economic integration could be achieved only if the gap between the poorest and richest regions was reduced. In 1975 the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was created with the aim of redistributing part of the Community budget to the poorest regions. The creation of the ERDF officially set the beginning of the EU Regional Policy that in its first stage could count on less than 5 per cent of the European Community budget (Tofarides, 2003). In 1986 the Single European Act set the basis for a genuine cohesion policy designed to offset the burden of the single market for the less favoured regions. It involved an increase in resources allocated to EU Regional Policy. In 1987, when the Single European Act came into force, the Regional Policy could count on 7 billion ECU, equal to 19 per cent of the Community budget. Even if in the 1980s the focus at EU level shifted from the development between regions to the development inside regions, we can argue that at this stage there is no evidence of an urban dimension of the EU policy. Stage 2 (1989–1993) Indeed, it was only in the 1990s that the EU realised that cities were the places where most of the problems and of the opportunities of regional development were concentrated. Therefore it was recognised that more attention to the functioning of cities was needed as a stimulus to economic integration in Europe. 2

A brief review of the EU Regional Policy for the actual programming period 2000–2006 can be found in Annex 1.

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In February 1988 the European Council in Brussels boosted the EU Regional Policy with a drastic reform of the Solidarity Funds (nowadays known as Structural Funds) allocating 68 billion ECU to them (at 1997 prices). In 1992 the Treaty on European Union, which came into force in 1993, set cohesion as one of the main objectives of the Union, alongside economic and monetary union and the single market. The same Treaty created the Cohesion Fund to support projects mainly in the field of environment and transport in the least prosperous member states. There were three main reasons for this first reform: the entry in 1986 of Spain and Portugal into the Community (representing the less developed countries of the Union); the fundamental importance of economic and social cohesion for further integration set by the approval of the Single European Act; and the urgent need felt to make these structural measures more effective. The increased attention by the EU on the urban issue at this stage was influenced by the Cheshire Report (1988), which highlighted the fact that many cities were in a period of decline. In 1991 this led the EC to make a proposal to modify the Treaty in order to grant the Commission a formal competence in urban policy but member states rejected this proposal. Following this failure to acquire a Treaty basis for action, EU Urban Policy developed through a number of instruments within the existing framework of Regional Policy (Tofarides, 2003). In 1992 the Parkinson Report – suggesting that the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s could have considered as a demographic and economic renaissance of many (large) European cities – gave a further stimulus to the EC to pursue the urban issue (de Lange, 1999). The Urban Pilot Projects (UPP) set up by Art. 10 of the ERDF represented the first attempts of the EC to come up with an (explicit) urban dimension to its Regional Policy. In practice this programme was restricted to some specific themes, because of the Structural Funds regulations. In any case, in spite of these restrictions, the UPP was a successful experience and had the opportunity to show the EC the potential of an (explicit) urban-related programme. Stage 3 (1994–1999) In December 1993 in Edinburgh the European Council operated a second reform of the Structural Funds (formerly known as Solidarity Funds): it almost doubled the financial allocation to them compared to the previous period (177 million ECU at 1999 prices). This means that one-third of the Community budget was allocated to the EU’s Regional Policy. In 1997 the Treaty of Amsterdam confirmed the importance of cohesion and stressed the need to work together to reduce unemployment. In May 1997 European Commissioner Monika Wulf-Mathies presented the discussion paper ‘Towards an Urban Agenda in the European Union’, which gave an analysis of problems and opportunities of European cities. This discussion paper provided the groundwork for the Urban Audit I, a pilot project where data

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on strengths and weaknesses of European cities would be statistically inventoried. In June of the same year, during the Dutch EU Presidency, an informal meeting of EU ministers for spatial development took place where one of the topics on the agenda was the urban dimension of the EU policy. Both events seemed to increase the EU’s attention on the problems of cities, but no concrete decisions on the institutionalisation of EU urban policy were taken. In October 1998 the EC published ‘Sustainable Urban Development in the European Union: A Framework For Action’, where the main pillars for an urban policy were set. The Urban Forum which took place one month later in Vienna represented an important step in the development of the urban dimension of EU policy since, for the first time, both the member states (with the Informal Meeting of Ministries) and the EC showed their willingness to pursue the development of a common urban policy. The experience and lessons of the first phase of the Urban Pilot Projects, launched in stage 2, led to the adoption of two programmes specifically targeted on cities. In 1994 the EC launched the Community Initiative URBAN, aimed at tackling issues of urban regeneration and cohesion. In 1997 the second phase of the Urban Pilot Projects was launched, covering 26 new (pilot) projects in urban areas with a total budget of 163.2 million ECU (at 1998 prices). URBAN I was the first Community Initiative entirely dedicated to the problems of cities to be approved by the member states. Stage 4 (2000–2006) The European Council held in Berlin in December 1999 decided a third reform of the Structural Funds and adjusted the operation of the Cohesion Fund. In the seven-year period 2000–2006 the two funds received €213 billion. The guiding principle in this third reform of the EU Regional Policy has been to focus further on assistance to regions whose development is lagging behind. The Structural Funds have the effect of enabling the least wealthy member states to achieve higher levels of investment in human and physical capital in developmentally more backward regions than would otherwise be the case, so helping to improve their long-term competitiveness. In 2000–2006 transfers are estimated to amount to around 9 per cent of total investment in Portugal, 8 per cent in Greece, 7 per cent in the Italian Mezzogiorno, 4 per cent in the German new Länder and 3 per cent in Spain (European Commission, 2004). In the present programming period more attention is being paid to cities that have been recognised as the engines of regional development. Moreover, the implementation of the Regional Policy has been simplified by reducing the range of assistance measures: this mainly involves the Structural Funds whose priorities – named objectives – have been reduced from seven to three. Besides the Community Initiative URBAN II – which continued the positive experience of URBAN I aiming at promoting sustainable development in troubled urban districts – the launch of URBACT – whose aim is to develop

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transnational exchange of experiences and good practices – and the launch of the second phase of the Urban Audit, a large part of the financial resources of Objectives 1 and 2 of the Structural Funds is directly or indirectly aimed at urban-related measures. Indeed, it has been estimated that more than €15 billion (approximately 7.7 per cent of the Structural Funds) are provided under the mainstream programmes of Objectives 1 and 2 aimed mainly at regenerating city centres (European Commission, 2004). Objective 2, whose general aim is to revitalise areas facing structural difficulties, makes specific mention of urban areas in a crisis situation. Stage 5 (2007–2013) For the Stage 5 programming period the EC seems to be more committed to the development of the urban dimension of its policy. Building on the success and the strength of the URBAN Initiative, the Commission intends to reinforce the place of urban issues by fully integrated actions in this field into the programmes (European Commission, 2004). A further simplification of the functioning of the Cohesion Policy, which also includes the regional and urban dimension of the EU policy, has been proposed. From the present nine objectives (not to be confused with the Objectives 1, 2 and 3 of the present Structural Funds: see Figure 3.1) and six financial instruments the future Cohesion Policy will be based on three objectives implemented through three financial instruments. The proposed three new objectives are: 1) convergence and competitiveness; 2) regional competitiveness and employment; and 3) European territorial cooperation. The three financial instruments that will remain are the European Social Fund, the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund (see Figure 3.1). It is still unclear where the new urban-related programmes will be positioned in the new proposed structure. More commitment towards the urban issue will be also asked of member states. This means that at the beginning of the 2007–2013 programming period each member state will propose a list of urban areas that could benefit from a specific action within the regional programmes. This will be part of the new initiative named URBAN+ that will probably cover a larger number of cities than the 70 today covered by the URBAN II initiative in the EU-15. According to the EC, a critical factor in the success of urban actions is the involvement of city authorities both in the design and management of programmes: therefore it has been recognised that a sub-delegation of responsibilities from member states to city authorities is necessary within the regional programmes. Table 3.1 offers a brief summary of the different stages that characterise the development of the urban and regional dimension of the EU policy. A comparison of the main statistics of the different programmes directly meant for urban areas can be found in Table 3.2.

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Figure 3.1 The proposed objectives and financial instruments for the Cohesion Policy in the programming period 2007–2013 Source: European Commission, 2004.

3.3

Urban Dimension in the EU Policy: The Actors

The object of this section is to present a brief description of the urban dimension of the policies carried out by the EU. We will start with a review of the main actors whose activities have influence on cities. In section 3.4, the programmes that shape the urban dimension of the EU policy will be analysed. The actors who are directly or indirectly related to the promotion of the urban dimension inside the EU policy can be classified into two groups: the Directorates General of the EC and the other institutional actors relevant to European cities.

Table 3.1 Summary of the stages of EU Regional Policy and its urban dimension EU Regional Policy

Urban dimension in the EU policy

Stage 1 1975–1988

Creation of the ERDF. The Regional Policy starts to be considered as a tool to reach economic integration.

Not yet existing, not even implicitly as part of the Regional Policy.

Stage 2 1989–1993

First reform of the Solidarity Funds (nowadays known as Structural Funds). The Regional Policy is considered one of the most important ways to achieve economic integration inside the EU. The creation of the Cohesion Fund is especially meant for the poorest countries (Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece).

The EC starts to realise the need to focus on the urban dimension of its policy. UPP represents the first attempt of the EC to have an explicit urban policy.

Stage 3 1994–1999

Stage 4 2000–2006

Stage 5 2007–2013 ( policy)

Second reform of the Structural Funds: the European Council doubled the financial allocations for them. Now one third of the Community budget is booked for Regional Policy. The Treaty of Amsterdam stresses the importance of cohesion.

The EC pushes towards the development of an urban policy. At the same time some member states consider the necessity of it (first Informal Meeting of Ministers focused on the urban issue). The divergence existing between the actors still prevented the institutionalisation of the EU urban policy. The Structural Funds finance two programmes specifically targeted to cities: UPP II and the Community Initiative URBAN.

Third reform of the Structural Funds: they receive 35 per cent of the Community budget. The implementation of the Regional Policy has been simplified: the priorities of the Structural Funds, named objectives, have been reduced from seven to three.

Cities get their official positioning inside the Regional Policy: besides the URBAN II Initiative and the Urban Audit II, also a relevant part of the Objectives 1 and 2 of the Structural Funds is meant, directly or indirectly, for cities. In particular a part of Objective 2 is dedicated to ‘urban areas facing structural difficulties’.

The priorities and financial instruments of the Cohesion Policy will be further simplified. There will be three main priorities: 1) Convergence and competitiveness; 2) regional competitiveness and employment; 3) European Territorial Cooperation. And three financial instruments: the Cohesion Fund, the ERDF and the ESF.

The EC shows more commitment towards the urban issue and proposes to involve city authorities from member states on urban-related issues. The URBAN+ Initiative will represent the main expression of the urban dimension of the EU policy.

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Table 3.2 EU programmes specifically directed at cities Programming period

Programme /cities

1989–93 1994-–99 ECU163.2m 1994–99 1994–99 2000–06 2000–06 2000–06

UPP 1 UPP 2

2007–13

URBAN I Urban Audit I URBAN II Urban Audit II OB 2 – Urban areas in difficulty URBAN+

No. of projects

33 26 118 58 70 258 Data not available >70

Budget investment

Total

ECU 102m ECU63.6m

ECU 204m

€900m €2.2m €728m €1.6m** Data not available

€1.8b €2.2m* €1.6b €2.0m** Data not available

10% Cohesion Policy budget

* The first phase of the Urban Audit did not involve co-financing. ** Regarding the EU 15.

DGs Relevant to the Urban Issue Several DGs are directly or indirectly involved in urban-related issues. DGs who can be considered to have a substantial impact on urban problems are those for Regional Policy, Employment and Social Affairs, Transport and Environment. While the DG for Regional Policy is the DG with the largest and most visible impact on cities, the DGs for Transport and for Employment and Social Affairs have less urban-related programmes but their impact on the functioning of European cities cannot be considered as less important, but just focused on another scale (respectively TENs and employment). The DG Environment has scarce financial resources but can issue directives that can affect quality of life in urban areas. The policy of these DGs is the subject of this section. DG for Regional Policy According to articles 158 and 160 of the Treaty, the DG for Regional Policy is the Directorate of the EC responsible for the measures implemented by European Union to assist the economic and social development of the less-favoured regions. The mission of the DG for Regional Policy is to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion by reducing disparities between the levels of development of regions and countries of the European Union. By cofinancing infrastructure projects, developing the information society, accelerating the transfer of know-how, supporting investments in people and stimulating cross-border cooperation, the DG helps regions that are less prosperous or are suffering from structural problems to improve competitiveness

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and to achieve a faster rate of economic development in a sustainable way (European Commission – DG for Regional Policy, 2004). The DG for Regional Policy is in charge of the administration of three major funds: the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Cohesion Fund and the Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA). Despite the fact that the DG for Regional Policy focuses on regions, it promotes several programmes that have an influence on the socio-economic functioning of cities. It can be considered as the DG with the highest influence on the urban dimension of the EU policy. Since the programming period 1989–1993 the main programmes focused on urban-related issues carried out by the DG for Regional Policy were the Urban Pilot Projects 1 and 2 (1989–1999), the URBAN I initiative (1994–1999), the Urban Audit I and II and the URBAN II (2000–2006) (see section 3.4). The DG for Regional Policy also plays an important role in managing the resources of Objective 2 of the Structural Funds dedicated to urban areas facing structural difficulties. DG for Employment and Social Affairs The two main social goals of the EU are stated in the Treaty: 1) the promotion of high level of employment and social protection; and 2) the raising of the standard of living and quality of life and solidarity among member states. The White Paper on Social Policy issued in 1994 clearly says that, besides efficient and innovative economic activities, preconditions for improving competitiveness are a good quality of life and socio-economic cohesion within and among regions. Following the introduction of a new title on employment by the Amsterdam Treaty in November 1997, member states – recognising the need to act collectively to prevent and tackle unemployment at EU level – launched the European Employment Strategy (EES). Many European Councils provided fundamental orientations for the EES but surely the most important was the Lisbon European Council (March 2000) where the EU set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: ‘to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ (Directorate General Employment and Social Affairs, 2004). From the beginning the EES supported the development of a territorial dimension of employment policies based on the belief that success in the fight against unemployment and social exclusion in Europe requires the mobilisation and support of all resources available, especially at regional and local levels. The main financial tool to implement the EU employment policy is the European Social Fund (ESF). Created in 1957, the ESF aims to promote a high level of employment, equality between men and women, sustainable development and economic and social cohesion in Europe. In the present programming period the ESF contributes to finance part of the programmes under Objectives 1 and 2, all programmes under Objective 3 and the EQUAL Community Initiative.

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The DG for Employment and Social Affairs’ main aim is to develop a sustainable European Social Model that leads to a society with more and better jobs based on equal opportunities. It has a key role in the interaction of economic, social and employment policies of the EU. Most of the problems with which the DG is concerned are concentrated in urban areas. Therefore the programmes supported by the DG have substantial influence on the socioeconomic functioning of European cities. DG Transport The main lines of the EU transport policy are presented in the White Paper ‘European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide’ (European Commission, 2001). It proposes some 60 specific measures to be taken at Community level under the transport policy in order to pursue the long-term strategy towards a sustainable transport system. Some of these measures are: turning intermodality into reality, building the Trans-European Networks (TENs), adopting a policy on effective charging for transport and developing high quality urban transport. Inside the EU transport policy the development of the TENs has the highest priority. Initiated by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the TENs can be considered as the first attempt since Roman era that Europe thinks about transport systems going beyond national boarders (European Commission, 2002a). The Barcelona Council in 2002 revised the guidelines of the TENs by strengthening the priority given to the first series of projects and by selecting six new priority projects among which the development of the Galileo satellite system and the crossing of the Pyrenees by rail. Because the TENs are often intended to connect urban regions with one another, they will have a strong impact on the development of cities. Moreover, the DG Transport, in cooperation with the DG Energy, has developed a new strategy on Clean Urban Transport. Among the different initiatives there is the CIVITAS initiative, launched by the EC in 2000, where €50 million has been earmarked from the budget of the 5th Framework Programme. The aim is to support cities in introducing innovative measures to radically improve urban transport in order to achieve a significant change in the modal split towards sustainable transport modes. Finally the importance of the DG Transport for urban-related measures can be observed from the two explicit references that the EU White Paper makes to cities. Recalling that the common transport policy alone will not provide all the answers, the White Paper highlights that the transport policy should be part of an overall strategy integrating sustainable development that includes land use policy and in particular town planning (in order to avoid unnecessary increase in mobility) and urban transport policy in large cities. DG Environment The DG Environment’s main role is to initiate and define new environmental legislation and to ensure that measures that have been agreed are actually put into practice in the member states. Even if the DG does not have substantial (financial) resources to control developments through subsidies, it can

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exert considerable influence on urban regions by issuing directives concerning, among other things, emissions from vehicles and industries, quality of air, quality of swimming and drinking water. Efforts to influence developments through directives take a lot of time (sometimes 10 years may go by before a directive becomes effective at the local level). Therefore the DG Environment tries to use pilot projects and the stimulation of urban networks to that effect. One of these networks, the Sustainable Cities Campaign, seems to be particularly relevant at the urban level. At the end of the first European Conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns, which took place in Aalborg (Denmark) in 1994, the European Sustainable Cities and Towns campaign was launched with the adoption of the Aalborg Charter by nearly 2,000 local authorities in Europe. The Charter provided a framework for the delivery of local sustainable development that could help cities to engage in Local Agenda 21 processes and clearly stated that cities are the places where problems could be turned into opportunities for development. A group of 10 networks of cities and towns active in different aspects of sustainable development have joined together to form the campaign and to support local authorities in their work on local sustainable development. Another important project at urban level is the European Common Indicators initiative, which is focused on monitoring environmental sustainability at local level. The European Common Indicators are a set of indicators that can help a town or city interested in the quality of its urban environment to begin to monitor progress. The focus of the initiative is on helping towns and cities monitor their own progress. Other DGs In view of the fact that most of the EU Regulations could affect the functioning of cities, other DGs with urban-related projects worth mentioning are the DG Research and the DG Education and Culture where we find, among other things, programmes such as ‘Cultural Heritage and City of Tomorrow’, ‘European Cities of Culture’ and ‘Town Twinning’. Other Institutional Actors Relevant to the Urban Issue With respect to the influence of the EU on the socio-economic functioning of cities there are various relevant actors involved. Their interests and their actions regarding the development of the urban dimension of the EU policy differ; therefore in this section a brief overview of the interests, opinions and actions with respect to some of the institutional actors relevant to urban-related issues will be given. The European Parliament In the last 15 years the European Parliament has been active in promoting the interest of cities, especially through its Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism. Among its other responsibilities, this Committee is responsible for the development of a European regional planning

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policy, including an urban policy. During the 1990s the Committee on Regional Policy has been the main inspiration for the Community Initiative URBAN. The Committee of the Regions The Committee of the Regions was created by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty as an advisory body to the European Parliament and serves as the representative voice of local and regional authorities. Its members are elected regionally or locally. There were two main reasons for setting up the Committee of the Regions. Firstly, most EU legislation has been implemented at local or regional level and thus it makes sense to have regional and local representatives involved in the development of new EU laws. Secondly, there was concern that the citizens were left behind as the EU developed as political entity. The Treaty forces the EC and Council to consult the Committee of the Regions whenever new proposals are made in areas with repercussions at regional or local level. These areas are economic and social cohesion, employment policy, social policy, TENs, environment, health, education, culture, vocational training and transport. In 1996, in preparation for the Intergovernmental Conference, Commission Four of the Committee of the Regions, the Commission for Urban Policy, drew up a paper on urban policy postulating that, until that moment, the urban policies conducted by the EU lacked of cohesion. The final suggestion of Commission Four was to institutionalise the urban policy by giving the EU the power to develop an explicit policy for cities. European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank’s (EIB) mission is ‘to further the objectives of the EU by making long-term finance available for sound investment’ (www.eib.org). Created by the Treaty of Rome and with the member states as stakeholders, the EIB raises funds on the capital markets in order to help the finance of investment projects promoting the development of the Union, especially in less developed regions. The lending activity of the EIB focuses on five operational priorities among which is ‘regional development and economic and social cohesion within the Union’, which serves to co-finance the projects financed by the Structural Funds, some of which have a substantial influence on urban level. Finally, the EIB has an important part to play especially in the financing of the TENs. Eurostat Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Community. Its main mission is to provide the EU with a high-quality statistical information service that enables comparisons between countries and regions. Eurostat plays a key role in the supply of statistics to DGs, the Commission and other European institutions in order to allow them to define, implement and analyse Community policies. Eurostat has a special working party on ‘Urban Statistics’ which plays an important role in the development of the Urban Audit Database, whose main purpose is to better understand the challenges of the urban development. Moreover, the statistics provided by Eurostat are useful for the EPSON research

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projects of spatial planning and for the URBAN II project targeted at urban regeneration. Eurocities Eurocities is a network of local governments that represents more than 118 major cities in some 31 European countries. It works with the European institutions on behalf of the cities on a wide range of issues affecting local authorities, and enables the exchange of best practices in local governance among its members. The main aims of Eurocities are to ensure that urban affairs are placed high on the European Union’s policy agenda, to promote transnational cooperation projects among its member cities across Europe and to foster a networking spirit amongst Europe’s large cities. Among the institutional actors analysed in this section, Eurocities is the only one not established directly by the EU. 3.4

Urban Dimension in the EU Policy: The Programmes

This section will continue the analysis of the urban dimension of the EU policies started in section 3.3 by focusing on those programmes that are specifically meant for urban areas. As well as the URBAN Community Initiative, probably the most city-oriented programme of the EC, Objective 2 of the Structural Funds will also be discussed in this section since it formally includes a section dedicated to urban areas facing structural difficulties. A brief report on the proposed urbanrelated programmes for the next programming period (2007–2013) will conclude the section. The URBAN Community Initiative URBAN is one of the Community Initiatives financed by the Structural Funds and launched by the EC with the aim ‘to find common solutions to problems affecting the whole European Union’. This Community Initiative is focused on the promotion of innovative strategies to regenerate cities and declining urban areas and represents an example of the urban dimension of the EU policy. In the last two programming periods two phases of this Community Initiative have developed: URBAN I (1994–1999) and URBAN II (2000–2006). Its follow up for the next programming period (2007–2013) will be called URBAN+. URBAN I Following the (positive) pioneering experience of the Urban Pilot Projects, in 1994 the EC decided to launch the Community Initiative URBAN with the aim of tackling issues of urban regeneration and cohesion. URBAN I targeted neighbourhoods in extreme deprivation addressing the problems of isolation, poverty and exclusion of their inhabitants through interventions aimed at a better physical and social environment. Neighbourhood deprivation aggravates an individual’s problems; in turn, social exclusion and lack of economic opportunity

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make the individual hostile to his/her environment. URBAN I introduced a new integrated approach to fight this vicious circle aiming at revalorising the individual through his/her environment and not in spite of it (Directorate General for Regional Policy, 2004b). In other words it tried to solve the problems of urban deprivation at grassroots level. Under the URBAN I initiative 118 programmes were funded, covering approximately 3 million people; 86 per cent of these programmes were located in cities with a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants (GHK, 2003). The areas covered by URBAN I were areas suffering from high unemployment (average rate 22 per cent), poor housing conditions, declining urban fabric and a lack of social amenities. URBAN I introduced a spatially-focused approach that maximises the impact of the interventions; each programme covered around 5.8km2, mainly a single neighbourhood or administrative district. The programme was targeted mainly at peripheral urban areas (38 per cent of programmes) and inner city areas (32 per cent). Historic city centres accounted for 19 per cent of programme areas and 12 per cent were focused on neighbourhoods with ‘mixed’ characteristics. A total of 82 per cent of programmes were located within Objectives 1 and 2 areas. Of these, 75 per cent foresaw a strategic link between the mainstream Structural Funds programmes and URBAN. These links were often facilitated by a common management structure at city level. This helped ensure coordination and complementarity between EU programmes (GHK, 2003). URBAN I programmes, whose total allocated EU funding was €900 million, have been co-financed by two Structural Funds: 83 per cent by the European Regional Development Fund and 17 per cent by the European Social Fund. The estimated total eligible investment for the 118 programmes was approximately €1.8 billion: other sources of finance were represented by national, regional and local authorities as well as by the private sector (GHK, 2003). URBAN I can be considered as a consolidation of the positive experience gained through the Urban Pilot Project and as a fundamental step in the development of the urban dimension of the EU policy. The combination of URBAN with existing regeneration projects, the synergies among the different selected URBAN projects and the active participation of local communities in the management and implementation of programme can be considered as the main factors supporting the success of an URBAN project. Some problems arose regarding the lack of support from the private sector and the difficulty in understanding EU documents and procedure by those involved in the programmes. URBAN II URBAN II builds on the positive experience of URBAN I and represents the Community Initiative for Sustainable Development in the troubled urban districts of the European Union for the actual programming period 2000–2006. It is based on the guidelines drawn up by the Commission, whose aims are to finance projects that can improve living conditions, create

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jobs, integrate the social excluded, develop environmental friendly public transport and facilitate the use of information technologies. In order to assist urban areas in crisis URBAN II focuses on three main actions: 1) physical and environmental regeneration; 2) social inclusion; and 3) entrepreneurship and employment. Some very important features of the URBAN II programmes are: targeting small (deprived) areas, focusing on social inclusion and integration of minorities, the formation of local partnerships and the exchange of experience and best practices. URBAN II involves 70 programmes covering approximately 2.2 million inhabitants. The contribution of the European Regional Development Fund is €728 million, generating a total investment of approximately €1.6 billion. The Structural Fund can contribute up to 75 per cent of the total costs of the programme for urban areas included in Objective 1 and up to 50 per cent elsewhere. Highest priority is given to programmes including physical and environmental regeneration (40 per cent of the total). The other two axes – social inclusion and entrepreneurship/employment – account for a further 42 per cent. The rest is for transport- and IT-related programmes. Of the 70 programmes there are 31 inner city areas, 27 peripheral areas, four mixed areas and eight entire cities (European Commission, 2002b). Table 3.3 summaries the main statistics concerning the two phases of the URBAN Community Initiative. Table 3.3 Comparison of the two phases of URBAN

URBAN I URBAN II

Number of projects

Population covered

Allocated EU budget

Estimated total investment

118 70

3.0m 2.2m

€900m €728m

€1.8b €1.6b

A particular feature of URBAN II is the provision for exchange of good practices across Europe. In order to get this aim a specific programme, named URBACT, has been created. URBACT The URBACT programme is part of the URBAN II Community Initiative. It aims to develop transnational exchange of experience between actors, whether cities or other partners, URBAN programmes or URBAN pilot projects, and to capitalise on these projects, drawing lessons from the results, successes and weaknesses noted (European Commission, 2002c). The URBACT programme, proposed by the French Ministry of Urban Policy in accordance with the other

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member states, has a budget of almost €25 million: approximately €16 million is provided by the European Community and the rest by the member states. In the setting up of the URBAN Community Initiative, the EC indicated that each programme should also provide assistance in the exchange and dissemination of experience and good practice. This exchange of information should lead to a knowledge base whose aim is to generate a reflection on the EU urban policy and the relative urban dimension of the Structural Funds for the next programming period (2007–2013). While the URBAN programmes already include technical assistance for their own implementation, URBACT is meant to develop other types of action as the creation of transnational networks for exchange of experience, for the capitalisation of the urban-related measures undertaken by the EC and for the discussion on the future urban dimension of the EU policy. At the moment several network proposals have been approved or are in the process of approval regarding different topics such as social inclusion, physical regeneration of urban areas, employment, urban crime prevention, youth, citizens’ participation, transport and environment, training and the inclusion of ethnic minorities. Urban Audit In June 1997 the EC decided to launch the Urban Audit project, whose pilot phase began in May 1998. This project was undertaken under the aegis of Article 10 of the ERDF Regulation which enables the support of innovative measures by the EC (source: DG for Regional Policy website). The Urban Audit’s main aim is to enable an assessment of the state of individual European cities and to facilitate the exchange of comparative information among them. The management of the Urban Audit is jointly carried out by the DG for Regional Policy and Eurostat. The indicators of the Urban Audit can be classified in five categories: socio-economic aspects, participation in civic life, education and training, environment, culture and leisure. Even if it can still be considered as a ‘work in progress’, the Urban Audit has had a rapid development: from the 58 cities invited to participate in the pilot phase, it can now count on the involvement of 258 European cities. The success of the second phase of the programme is highlighted by the fact that all central statistic bureaus of the member states are now involved in the Urban Audit II. Trying to solve some of the problems that occurred with the UPP, especially the problem connected to the lack of comparable data among European cities, the Urban Audit has the potential to become an important and powerful advisory tool for cities. Objective 2 of the Structural Funds Almost all the financial resources of the Structural Funds for the programming period 2000–2006 was used on three clearly-defined priorities, known as Objectives: Objectives 1 and 2 are territorially-oriented while Objective 3 is

The Urban Dimension in European Policy: History, Actors and Programmes

Figure 3.2 The European cities involved in the different networks created by URBACT Source: URBACT webpage.

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thematic. Objective 2 aims to revitalise areas facing structural difficulties, whether industrial, rural, urban or dependent on fisheries. Despite being situated in regions whose development level is close to the Community average, such areas are faced with different types of socio-economic difficulties that are often the source of high unemployment (Directorate General for Regional Policy, 2004a). Objective 2 receives €22.5 billion, which is 11.5 per cent of the Structural Funds budget for the programming period 2000–2006. Regions included in Objective 2 host 18 per cent of the EU population. The kind of difficulties faced by Objective 2 areas also include declining urban areas where long-term unemployment is above the Community average and where there are high levels of poverty and crime couple with a low level of education and acute environmental problems. The 18 per cent of the European population covered by Objective 2 comprises 8.5 per cent in industrial areas, 5.2 per cent in rural areas, 1.9 per cent in urban areas, 0.3 per cent in areas dependent on fisheries and 2.1 per cent in mixed areas (Directorate General for Regional Policy, 2004a). From these figures it seems that the urban issue is under-represented; in reality many urban areas are represented in the category ‘declining industrial areas’. This also means that it is quite difficult to quantify the precise amount of financial resources that, under the mainstream programmes of Objective 2, are specifically dedicated to urban-related issues. It has been estimated that more than 10 per cent of the Objectives 1 and 2 budget is aimed, directly or indirectly, at regenerating urban areas (European Commission, 2004). Compared to the programmes for areas eligible for Objective 2 and 5b funding in the programming period 1994–1999, the programmes under the present Objective 2 are less focused on infrastructure and more on the stimulation and creation of (alternative) activities that can help declining urban areas to overcome their problems. Even if there is a clear package of measures for urban areas in Objective 2, the impact on cities still cannot be considered as successful as the impact generated by the URBAN Initiative. Firstly, the Objective 2 measures are still characterised by a ‘top-down’ approach: there has been very little decentralisation of management and the member states still have most of the power to decide how these programmes should be carried out. This leads inevitably to a lower degree of partnership at regional and local level. Moreover, the priority of Objective 2 actions is still focused on the economic rather than on a social aspect. Finally, the programmes aimed at urban regeneration under Objective 2 still do not represent as clear a brand as programmes specifically meant for the urban issue do: among city authorities especially the urban-related programmes of Objective 2 do not have the same image as the URBAN Initiative Programmes.

The Urban Dimension in European Policy: History, Actors and Programmes

Figure 3.3 Eligible regions for Objectives 1 and 2 in the programming period 2000–2006 Source: DG for Regional Policy webpage.

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The Future Programmes (2007–2013) As reported in section 3.2, for the next programming period (2007–2013) the EC seems to be more committed towards the development of the urban dimension of its policy. The present proposals, not yet approved by the member states, focus both on the new phase of the URBAN Initiative and on a more clear urban dimension inside the Cohesion Policy. The proposal for the continuation of the Community Initiative URBAN, whose name will be URBAN+, represents a very ambitious programme, whose aim is to get 10 per cent of the financial resources of the three new objectives of the future Cohesion Policy. This relatively high financial request – compared to the preceding periods – has the final aim of creating a stronger brand for the URBAN Community Initiative: in other words, they want to make it clear that URBAN+ represents financial resources that the EU wants to dedicate to the cities. The proposed URBAN+ Initiative should differ from the actual URBAN II in a number of ways. First of all, it has been proposed to abandon the ‘micro-zone’ approach typical of URBAN (in the first phase of this Initiative, for example, the average area covered by each programme was 5.8km2 – usually one single neighbourhood) in favour of a more region-wide approach. A second important difference should be a shift in the focus: the new URBAN+ will use not only a problem-solving approach but also an opportunity-based approach, meaning that the new Community Initiative will focus not only on the solution of existing problems but also on the stimulation of (potential) opportunities in depressed urban areas. Moreover, in the proposed URBAN+ more commitment towards the urban issue is also asked from member states; each member state should propose a list of urban areas that could benefit from the URBAN+ Initiative and in which the Member State itself is willing to co-invest to integrate the financial resources of the Initiative (European Commission, 2004). Finally URBAN+ should have a bigger budget compared to the present URBAN II and, therefore, cover a greater number of cities than the 70 covered in the present programming period. The proposed simplification of the Cohesion Policy functioning for the programming period 2007–2013 will also affect the urban dimension of the EU policy. As we have seen in section 3.2, the new Cohesion Policy will be based on three new objectives implemented through three financial instruments. At the moment it is still unclear where the new urban-related programmes will be positioned in the new proposed structure: while the URBACT will probably become part of the new Objective 3 (European Territorial Cooperation), it is still not clear where the URBAN+ Initiative will be allocated.

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Conclusions

The aim of this chapter was to make an analysis of the development of the urban dimension of the EU policy. This section is a summary of the that development. The EU Treaty gives the EC plenty of room for the development of a common regional policy but, since there is no mention of the concept of city, there is no competence to develop a common urban policy. As a consequence of this the urban dimension of the EU policy has to be found mainly within the framework of the EU Regional Policy and is somewhat fragmented within some other fields of interest (represented by various DGs). Different stages can be identified in the development of the urban and regional dimension of the EU policy. With the creation of the European Regional Development Fund in 1975 the EU officially started its Regional Policy, considering it as a tool to pursue the economic integration among its member states. In this first stage, which lasted till 1988, there was no focus on the urban issue. It was only in the programming period 1989–1993 (stage 2) that the EC started to realise the importance of an urban dimension to its policy and launched the Urban Pilot Projects as a first official attempt to focus on cities. In the third stage, programming period 1994–1999, both the EC and the member states seemed to be more committed to the institutionalisation of an EU Urban Policy, but no concrete decisions were taken. In this stage there were two urbanrelated programmes financed by the Structural Funds: the second phase of the Urban Pilot Projects and the Community Initiative URBAN. Finally, it can be argued that in stage 4, the actual programming period (2000–2006), the urban issue has found its official positioning inside the EU Regional Policy: indeed, as well as the second phase of the Community Initiative URBAN, a relevant part of Objectives 1 and 2 of the Structural Funds is meant, directly or indirectly, for cities. In particular Objective 2 has a specific part dedicated to urban areas facing structural difficulties. It can be stated that the attention to cities over the years has considerably increased, but always under the umbrella of regional policy. The proposals for the next programming period (2007–2013) see an increased focus on urban issues both from the EC and from the member states. In any case, the urban dimension of EU policy will remain in the framework of the regional policy. Several actors are directly or indirectly related to the promotion of the urban dimension of the EU policy. On the one hand, there are some Directorates General that are involved in urban-related issues, such as the DG for Regional Policy (with the largest and most visible impact on cities), the DG Employment and Social Affairs, the DG Transport and the DG Environment. On the other hand, there are other institutional actors, such as the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, the European Investment Bank and Eurostat, that have, at different levels, an influence on the functioning of urban areas.

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Finally, this chapter has given an overview of the most important EU programmes specifically developed for cities. The most explicit city-oriented programme undertaken by the EC is the Community Initiative URBAN whose focus is on the promotion of innovative strategies to regenerate cities and declining urban areas. Built on the (positive) pioneering experience of the Urban Pilot Projects, the URBAN I and II Initiatives have targeted more than 180 urban areas and neighbourhoods in extreme deprivation, addressing the problems of poverty, unemployment, social exclusion and environment. The proposed continuation and expansion of this Community Initiative in the programming period 2007–2013 will take the name of URBAN+. In the present programming period (2000–2006) also Objective 2 of the Structural Funds has a specific part dedicated to urban areas facing structural difficulties. It has been estimated that more than 10 per cent of the Objectives 1 and 2 budgets of the Structural Funds aims, directly or indirectly, at regenerating urban areas. References De Lange, C. (1999), ‘Naar een stedelijk beleid in de Europese Unie’, in F. Evers, B. Waterhout and W. Zonneveld (eds), Europa in stad en land, The Hague: NIROV, pp. 105–15. Directorate General for Regional Policy (2004a), Objective 2. Revitalizing Areas Facing Structural Difficulties. Directorate General for Regional Policy (2004b), Urban Community Initiative 1994– 1999. Directorate General Employment and Social Affairs (2004), The EES: A Key Component of the Lisbon Strategy. European Commission (2001), ‘White Paper – European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide’, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2002a), Trans-European Transport Network – TEN-T Priority Projects, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2002b), ‘Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – The Programming of the Structural Funds 2000–2006: An Initial Assessment of the Urban Initiative’, Brussels, COM (2002) 308 final. European Commission (2002c), ‘The Urbact Programme 2002–2006 – URBAN II Community Initiative’, report, Brussels: European Commission. European Commission (2004), A New Partnership for Cohesion Convergence Competitiveness Cooperation, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission – DG for Regional Policy (2004), Annual Management Plan 2004, Brussels. GHK (2003), ‘Ex-post Evaluation Urban Community Initiative (1994–1999) – Final Report’, Brussels.

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Tofarides, M. (2003), Urban Policy in the European Union – A Multi-level Gatekeeper System, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Web References http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/objective2/index_en.htm, accessed 13 April 2004. http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/urban2/urban/initiative/src/frame1.htm, accessed 8 April 2004. http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/employment_strategy/index_en.htm, accessed 13 April 2004.

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Chapter 4

Austria: No National Urban Policies Friedrich Schindegger1

4.1

Introduction

Austria is a federation of nine states (Länder). The capitals of eight states are centres of metropolitan regions. The most significant is the city of Vienna, which is at the same time one of the states and the federal capital. As an urban area Vienna has a population roughly equal to that of the seven other (Länder) capitals and their catchment areas. While Vienna could be considered a large city by international standards, the others are only medium-sized cities. This strong imbalance between Vienna and the other cities of the urban network in Austria has historical roots – Vienna was capital of the Danube monarchy up to 1918. In addition to the prime city of Vienna, the following city size classes can be discerned: • •

•

four large state capitals are monocentric city regions: Linz, Graz, Salzburg and Innsbruck; two smaller state capitals; Klagenfurt in sort of a twin-city relation with neighbouring Villach and Bregenz as part of the polycentric Rhine ValleyLake Constance area; St Pölten is a special case: it became the state capital of Lower Austria only in the 1980s and is a relatively small city region.

These cities may be considered the main regional centres of Austria, containing about half of the population and gaining about two-thirds of the GDP of the country. Looking at the Austrian city system in the context of the distribution of cities in central Europe it becomes clear that the spatial distribution of the Austrian cities usually is perceived from an island perspective, focusing only on the Austrian territory. However, the full integration with the neighboured candidate countries to be expected within the next years needs a borderless perspective in order to observe and assess spatial conditions and their changes. This perspective shows some potential for polycentric development. In particular, this applies to the case of the Greater Vienna Region. Around a core with the two major 1

Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning.

Figure 4.1 Map of Austria and surrounding area

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cities (and national capitals) Vienna and Bratislava there is a circle of small and medium-sized cities in a distance of 60–80km maximum. In an even wider European perspective this ‘twin-city metropolitan area’ may be considered the core area of Central Europe likely to become a new ‘global economic integration zone’ (see European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), 1999). The pattern of the spatial distribution of cities in Austria has been rather stable during many decades. The changes of population did not cause major changes in the settlement structures. An exception is the suburbanisation that is progressing dramatically and – by increased mobility and growing commuting distances – is going ‘to jump into a second circle’. It is driven by: • •

• • • 4.2

a strong increase in the number of households as compared to population trends; a societal preference for a very low-density style of residential areas (detached single-family houses) throughout attractive landscapes surrounding the cities; the strong efforts to improve the rail and road networks in the urban agglomeration areas; the ‘outmigration’ of logistic, manufacturing and service enterprises following the labour force and households to the suburban areas; an increase in the demand for land utilised per workplace. No National Urban Policy At All

There is nothing that could be called urban policy in Austria, either on a national or regional level. The most recent report on spatial planning from the Austrian Conference on Spatial Planning (ÖROK, 2002, p. 132)2 describes the situation as follows: On behalf of the federal government no measures concerning only urban development were pursued because this is an objective belonging to the competence of the states and municipalities. Of course, on the other hand, the urban regions are not excluded from the federal government’s activities. Among the measures relevant to the urban areas, the report names the science and technology park ‘Tech Gate Vienna’ and several transport infrastructure developments (motorways, high-speed rail, Vienna urban rail system, inter-modal transport nodes).

In additiont, it has to be mentioned that in fact the state governments do not take up the issue of urban policy either, although they could have influence over urban development, especially regarding their competence for comprehensive spatial planning. However, it is common to the general political strategy of all 2 The ÖROK is a platform for spatial planning at national level based on a voluntary political agreement between the partners – federal government, state governments and (associations of cities and) municipalities.

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the state governments that they prefer to focus their development policies on their respective (‘weak’) peripheries rather than their (‘strong’) central areas. Thus, urban policy may be considered being only carried out by the cities themselves. However, this hardly corresponds with the term used internationally. This lack of objective ‘urban policy’ is not because there are no social, economic and environmental issues that occur mainly in cities and urban areas in Austria too, as well as in other European countries. The difference in the way other countries have made these issues a topic of a paricular policy may be derived from the framework of constitution and from the financial endowment of the municipalities. First of all, the Austrian constitution does not mention urban policy as a field of activity and competence of the federation (Bund); it does not even provide a competence for spatial planning for the national government. Therefore, there is no federal ministry for spatial planning that could deal with matters such as urban politics. Initially it seems appropriate to give an explanation of the concept of spatial planning (Raumordnung) as used here. Spatial planning is understood to mean the entirety of measures by public territorial authorities of both sovereign territorial administrative and public business administrative character (see below), which are aimed at forming the common territory according to certain political goals. This refers in particular to economic, social, cultural and environmental conditions. Spatial planning thus comprises not only the planning of land use but also the execution all those measures with territorial and spatial impact that influence the nature of the spatial development of a territory. This applies to the concept as it is used in the official literature. In other words: it may be considered being the intention of authorities responsible for spatial planning. However, in real politics the understanding of spatial planning is mainly related to land-use planning. Austria is a federation of nine states (including Vienna) and has roughly 2,300 municipalities. Political representation and policy-making take place on three levels: federation (Bund), state (Land) and municipality (Gemeinde), which also applies to spatial planning. In practice, this is understood to be a national task which is performed by the federal government, state governments and municipalities in coordination, although this is not explicitly regulated by the constitution (of 1929). According to a decision of the Constitutional Court, comprehensive spatial planning in legislation and execution is the autonomous responsibility of the states, albeit with the significant restriction that the named powers of the federal government regarding important sectoral measures and planning activities with territorial reference remain intact. Among the latter are, for example, railways, the inter-regional road network, forestry and laws relating to water. The consequence in practice is that the federal government and state governments both carry out parallel activities related to spatial development.

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The states have influence over urban development, especially regarding their competence for comprehensive spatial planning based on spatial planning laws. The state governments implement these laws by state development plans (Landesraumordnungsprogramme), sectoral state plans (Landesfachplanungen) and regional development plans ( Regionale Raumordnungsprogramme) in varying numbers and of differing natures. These plans contain objectives and the determination of specific locations; they function as the supralocal framework for the local spatial planning of the municipalities. The spatial planning laws also determine the planning instruments of the municipalities. In addition, states have the duty to supervise municipal planning and to assist municipalities in their work. However, spatial planning at the local level is mentioned in the constitution (since 1962) under the tasks that are the autonomous sphere of competence of (all) the municipalities, i.e. there is no difference between cities and other municipalities. Responsibility for spatial planning at regional level (spatial development issues between state and municipality level) lies with the states. Based on the constitutional right to self-governance of municipalities these enjoy a relatively high degree of independence in administrative matters from the states and the federation. Especially in the light of the autonomy of the municipalities concerning local spatial planning and their competence for the issuance of building permits, one can say that decisions on the development of settlements in Austria are reached mainly on the lower tiers of the planning system. Since the city regions in Austria cover several municipalities, the situation might occur in which municipalities independently, and sometimes even competing with one another, pursue their own spatial development goals. A city region in Austria does not usually act as a uniform planning institution that pursues a common planning goal (there have been no successful new attempts since tye previous report on urban policies in Austria in 1997). Attempts to coordinate action for common goals in a city region exist in the area of Vienna through the Planungsgemeinschaft-Ost (planning partnership East) formed jointly by the states of Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, which coordinates spatial planning activities that affect the entire region. However, it could not really successfully tackle the problem of competition among municipalities so far. For the urban region of Salzburg, the state resolved a supra-local sectoral plan on the regional level which coordinates settlement development and the location of enterprises between the core city of Salzburg and its hinterland. Another attempt was begun in the urban region of Graz (1999) with the establishment of a regional management focusing mainly on issues related to cooperation between the city area and the surrounding districts and also on development issues in the surrounding area. The regional management – rather successful in several rural regions – is an innovative approach for an urban region in Austria, but it is suffering from resource constraints with only

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2.5 staff financed by public means. Within the urban area there is no governance structure of relevance beside regional management. Beyond the scope of legislative competence, all territorial authorities have the power to implement measures in the sphere of public business administration for which there are no competence limits and which cover economic activities within the scope of private law (e.g. land purchases, investment incentives). Every state has an economic promotion agency that, for example, sets up business parks. Municipalities as well as the federal government and the state governments may own, acquire and dispose of assets of all types as business entities. They may operate business enterprises, administer their own budgets and write off expenses. Thus they may apply completely independent measures from the sphere of private business administration in order to achieve their spatial planning and urban development goals. The amounts available from the funds, which are important for the political distribution of power, illustrate the situation: of total public expenditures roughly 70 per cent comes from the federation, 15 per cent from the states and 15 per cent from the municipalities. The share of municipalities (including Vienna) in expenditure for activities with strong spatial reference (ÖIR, 1992)3 is much higher, though, (federal 50 per cent, state 20 per cent, municipality 30 per cent). This reflects the significant role played by municipalities as strong factors of influence on spatial impact trends. The main financial sources of all the municipalities come from the tax revenues and duties. The taxation system responsible for the income funds consists basically of federal taxes (roughly 25 per cent), so-called mutual federal taxes (roughly 70 per cent) and municipal taxes (roughly 5 per cent of total tax revenue). Municipalities receive roughly 15 per cent of the mutual federal taxes. The allocation of the mutual federal taxes to the municipalities according to the Revenue Equalisation Law is determined by the number of inhabitants in line with a progressive population scale. This progressive population scale is grouped into four levels of multiples of the population of municipalities. The population number of municipalities with no more than 10,000 inhabitants is calculated using a factor of 1.33; with 10,001 to 20,000 inhabitants, 1.66; with 20,001 to 50,000 inhabitants, 2.0; and with more than 50,000 inhabitants, 3.33. The allocation of mutual federal taxes, therefore, takes into account that larger cities need to fulfil central place functions for their hinterland and must therefore provide more infrastructural services. Thus, the Revenue Equalisation Law forms one of the most important federal regulations that take the special position of big cities into account. It is negotiated between federal government, 3 Expenditures with strong spatial reference are those spent by the public sector that can clearly be traced spatially (all municipal expenditures, measures of regional economic policy) or on that take spatially relevant aspects into account (transportation policy, agricultural policy) or that have the effect of generating varying spatial distribution patterns (educational, housing or health policy) (ÖIR, 1992).

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the union of cities and the union of municipalities4 every three years. Since consensus between the three partners mentioned (and, moreover, with the Länder) is necessary for political reasons, at the end of difficult negotiations marginal changes are usually the outcome. Thus, the rules remain quite stable over a long time. The most important municipal tax is the communal tax of 3 per cent on payrolls of employed persons. It basically determines the financial power of a municipality and for this reason those municipalities with more industry and tourism are financially better off. Horizontal revenue equalisation between municipalities does not exist in Austria. Fees for the use of municipal services (canalisation, water supply, waste disposal, etc.) also contribute considerably to the municipalities’ income. However, these funds are allocated to specific uses and for operating the corresponding infrastructure. Moreover, municipalities are supported in the financing of infrastructure investments in several ways. The most important is the Environment (former Water Management) Fund (at the federal level) followed by state funds and by a separate fund for municipalities, which is administrated by the state (granted according to need). A special kind of support for the bigger cities and their respective urban agglomeration area may be considered the financing of the Integrated Transport Service and Tariff Systems (Verkehrsverbünde). Whereas, for example, in the urban agglomerations of the state capitals the split of total budget (1993) is one third for each partner federation, state and city, the federal capital is in a better situation: the federation receives 50 per cent, the city of Vienna 34 per cent and the surrounding states Lower Austria 15 per cent and Burgenland 1 per cent for rail services (for the bus services the split is 5 0 per cent, 8.5 per cent, 34.5 per cent, 7 per cent, due to the varying geography of commuter flows) (Draxler, 1994). In addition, Vienna gains 50 per cent participation from the federation for underground network development costs. This kind of tailored financial support from the federal level to some cities may be interpreted as kind of an urban policy. However, in Austria it has never been interpreted this way. EU subsidies to cities are granted primarily within the scope of Community Initiatives. Since these are used to fund single projects, they do not really play a substantial role in financing. The cities of Vienna and Graz receive funds from URBAN (see below). Regarding the contents of the overall development policy pursued, the municipalities have a relatively strong position, especially if their finances are also strong due to high tax revenues. Municipalities may apply completely independent measures from the sphere of private business administration (investments, 4

This may be due to the fact that the union of cities (Österreichischer Städtebund) as well as the union of the (smaller) municipalities (Österreichischer Gemeindebund) focuses its activities on negotiating the Revenue Equalisation Law with the federal government every three years. There is no Austrian network of the bigger cities.

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investment incentives) in order to achieve their spatial planning goals. In summary, the basis for spatial development policy in general and urban policy in particular, may be characterised as competences in competition. The municipalities are also in a relatively independent position in ‘horizontal’ relation to each other. Since inter-communal cooperation between the core municipalities and their hinterland municipalities is lacking, competition between the municipalities of a city region for the location of enterprises, jobs, inhabitants, etc. exists. The more jobs there are, the higher is the revenue from the communal tax, and more inhabitants also means a higher share of the funds from the common state taxes. The reason for this is to be found in tax legislation and revenue equalisation between the territorial authorities, which makes the municipalities highly dependent on their own income. This competitive situation is aggravated by the fact that state administrative bodies often see themselves as representatives of the interests of the hinterland municipalities, which are weaker in terms of inhabitants and financially, as opposed to the economically more dominant core cities. The problem is especially acute in the region of Vienna, because Vienna is at the same time state and municipality, while the hinterland municipalities belong to another state (Lower Austria). This rivalry makes a development policy of integration for metropolitan areas much more difficult. In summary, the facts described above may be considered as reasons why no comprehensive urban policy exists on the federal level in Austria. 4.3

The State of the Cities

Due to the total absence of urban policy at the national and the regional level mentioned above (see note to Table 4.1), there are no statistics about urban issues at national level. There is not even any common delimitation of urban areas or regions. Also, there is no monitoring of policy measures relevant for spatial development beyond the regulations of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the objective areas (until 2000 no major urban areas were part of objective areas). The description of the major urban issues in the previous report (on National Urban Policies in Austria, 1997) with the headlines: • • • • • • •

suburbanisation and land consumption; inefficient utilisation of the infrastructure; environmental problems from individual short distance traffic; declining significance of city centres; social segregation caused by speculative renovation of buildings; integration of migrants; internationalisation;

Table 4.1 Cities and urban regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1996

Note: the ‘regions’ are represented by the surrounding NUTS 3 units due to a lack of common delimitation of urban regions. Sources: Statistik Austria; EUROSTAT, Regio Datenbank; ÖIR: GDP of Bezirke 1995.

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

72

•

the role and function of large cities with regard to the opening of the borders with Eastern Europe may still be considered topical. However, looking to the near future, the accession of the neighbouring countries to the European Union in May 2004 was expected to bring about a dynamisation of the current trends of spatial changes in general and the competition between neighbouring cities in particular.

There is no programme or concept in Austria that explicitly illustrates the national perspective of urban issues and challenges from the standpoint of the federal government. However, Austrian Spatial Development Concept 2001 (ÖROK, 2002) includes a chapter on ‘Urban Regions – Dynamic and Calling for Order’.5 The problems and goals mentioned in that concept may be represented by the headlines from the chapter mentioned above as follows: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

global and international economic competition of urban regions; growing suburbs; change of the functions of core cities; urban regions are agglomerations of traffic; built up or open areas; polycentric and appealing urban regions; decentralised concentration in suburbia; to maintain and promote urban regions as economic centres; urban regions need attractive core cities; sophisticated development of residential areas; controlled change of grown spatial structures; urban regions favoured for public transport; space saving development; to make urban regions capable of acting as a whole – coordination and cooperation as instruments of a pro-active urban region’s policy; to maintain and promote edificial appeal of the core cities; prospective and supra-local coordination of development of building land in suburbia; to achieve multifunctional structures in suburbia; to develop consensual strategies and cooperative instruments, differentiated application of legal instruments; to consider the territorial impacts of fiscal instruments and aids; make urban regions capable of acting – coordination and cooperation as tools of an active urban (region’s) policy.

Within this context one may raise the key question of how the spatial structure of Austria, which has been quite stable for decades, will change under the influence

5

See footnote 2.

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of developing the Trans-European transport networks. The author’s speculation is: •

•

•

upgrading the location of the urban regions of Vienna, Graz and Linz (TTEN), stagnating locations of other medium-sized cities and their regions, in particular in the south of Austria; a future for the cities of Linz and Salzburg as well as Graz and Klagenfurt in the way of functional division of labour (with future daily commuting distances as basis for common development potentials); intra-regional: ongoing suburbanisation at the fringes of major and mediumsized cities.

Such scenarios could serve the opinion-shaping on probable developments and a new discussion about whether and how they can be governed. 4.4

Two Exceptional Cases of Urban Policy: The New State Capital St Pölten and the Initiative for the ‘Vienna – Bratislava Region6

In 1996 the state parliament, state government and the office of the state government of Lower Austria, which had had their seats in Vienna since 1921, moved to roughly 60km to the west of Vienna. The city of St Pölten had been declared the new state capital by a state law issued in 1986. It was preceded by an extensive impact analysis carried out by the Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning (ÖIR) and a referendum with a positive outcome. The necessary administrative buildings and a culture district had to be built; they are intended to serve as the main centre of cultural activities for the state of Lower Austria. The new government district in St Pölten is a new part of the city close to the old historic city centre. The core of the building complex is the parliament building directly on the river bank, the culture district lies between the historic part of the city and the parliament district. The culture district consists essentially of the State Museum of Lower Austria with the Lower Austrian Art Gallery, a hall for special exhibitions, a festivities hall especially for concerts, the Lower Austrian State Library, galleries, ateliers and restaurants. On the edge of the culture district is the ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Company) headquarters for Lower Austria. The expansion of the city of St Pölten into state capital pursues several spatial planning goals at the same time. The project of the state capital will serve as: • • •

a focus of development for the commuting zones of Vienna and Linz; a bastion of development for the state’s weak areas; relief for Vienna’s urban hinterlands from settlement pressure; 6

According to an agreement with EURICUR instead of ‘National Urban Policies from the mid-1990s up to now’.

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• •

a ‘motor’ of decentralisation; a centre for the endogenous development of the state.

The impact on the spatial structure is related to significant economic effects for the entire state. The predictions of an ex-ante analysis on the investment effects were more than confirmed by an ex-post analysis showing that the total volume of public and private investments of more than €1 billion resulted in an added value for the Austrian economy of more than €0.8 billion and fiscal effects of €0.37 billion (75 per cent of which was additional tax revenue). The specific geographic, social, economic and political situation of a future Cross-Border Metropolitan Region of Vienna-Bratislava with its twin city7 metropolitan area provides a unique setting in the European landscape of cities with a considerable potential intensity for a future cross-border cooperation. There is no official common vision for the Vienna–Bratislava Region, but there are cross-border initiatives that are trying to develop strategies. An important step in this direction was the signing of the ‘Kittsee Declaration’ in the autumn of 2003. The Governors of Burgenland, Lower Austria and Vienna and the mayors of the cities Bratislava, Trnava, Sopron, Györ, Brno, Eisenstadt and St Pölten thus declared their will to establish a close cooperation within theViennaBratislava Region. The aims are: • • • •

rapid social integration within the region; common use and advancement of existing innovation potentials; sustainable increase of economic prosperity and competitiveness; conscious insertion of the cultural and linguistic variety.

This initiative is continuing the cross-border activities in the area, where several INTERREG IIIA – PHARE CBC Programmes with the neighbouring countries Slovak Republic, Hungary and Czech Republic have been put in place for the period 2000 to 2006. The most recent one (still running) is the INTERREG IIIA/Phare CBC project JORDES+ (Joint Regional Development Strategy for the Vienna-Bratislava-Györ-Region) pursuing the objective to establish a regional strategy of planning and project development, which is coordinated and accepted by the regional partners. The implementation of this strategy enables a determined and optimized development into an internationally positioned growing region. These cooperation initiatives are important first steps for the region, but with regard to future developments (consolidation into one metropolitan region) we have to recognise that there are no common binding governance mechanisms. Therefore it seems necessary to establish a cross-border institution that could jointly develop policies and implement these in an effective and coordinated way. 7

Distance between Vienna and Bratislava: 60km.

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What is the Impact of European Policies?

There is no empirical evidence on the impact of European policies on the Austrian cities and urban areas in general. What can be said under this heading concerns the cities’ participation in EU ERDF programmes addressing urban areas. The following describes one Objective 2 programme (Vienna), Community Initiatives (CIs), Urban and INTERREG programmes and Vienna’s involvement in international city networking activities. Parts of the city of Vienna (parts of the 2nd and 20th districts) belong to the Austrian Objective 2 area (since 2001). It concerns about 60,000 inhabitants (with a percentage of immigrants above the average) and an area of 440 ha. The programme area comprises high-density residential areas with bad sanitary equipment and old building fabric, an urban railway area to be redeveloped and a valuable city park area. The total financial volume is about €47 million (about €18 million of which comes from ERDF). The cities of Vienna and Graz were already taking part in the CI Urban in the prevous period of the Structural Funds. The URBAN I applications are considered successful in both cities. Improvements of the urban milieu visible for everybody have been attracting some public attention to the EU policy (comparable with the impacts of the CI Leader to the public mind in some rural areas). Vienna and Graz are also participating in the topical URBAN II Programme. The elected programme area of Vienna for the period 2000 to 2006, Erdberg, in the southeast of the city comprises almost 23,000 inhabitants. The area of 160 ha. is divided by an urban expressway and despite its good accessibility it may be considered a disadvantaged quarter for several reasons: high unemployment and high poverty rates and a high percentage of immigrants. The total budget is almost €16 million (including about €4 million from ERDF). The 2000–2006 programme area of Graz (Graz-West) is an old industrial and manufacturing area close to the city comprising almost 32,000 inhabitants and an area of about 740 ha. It is now on the way to changing its functions to urban development. The total budget is about €20 million (more than €4 million from ERDF). Concerning involvement in international city networking activities only Vienna can be addressed here, because there is no proper reviewing source for the corresponding cities’ activities.8 Vienna is participating among others in the city network of EUROCITIES, the Union of the European Capitals (UCUE), the ‘Conference of European Capitals for EU Enlargement’, the Union of Central and South-Eastern European Capitals and the Urban Technology Network II (UTN II). In addition the city is involved in several projects under INTERREG IIIA and IIIB. The total budget within IIIA is about € 15 million (of which 50 per cent comes from ERDF). About the involvement in INTERREG IIIB there is no review available showing the projects concerned and their budget quotas. 8 See footnote 3.

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Perception and opinion of the national government on the impact of EU policies on cities (as mentioned in the guideline for this report) cannot be presented because of reasons given above. 4.6

Summary and Conclusions

As we have seen, there is nothing that could be called urban policy in Austria, either at national or regional level. Thus, urban policy may be considered to be carried out only by the cities themselves. But this does not really correspond with the term ‘urban policy’ as it is used internationally. Of course, there are some policy areas of which urban regions benefit, e.g. the national co-financing of Integrated Transport Service and Tariff Systems for the public transport systems of urban agglomerations. On the other hand, there is the exceptional single case of the upgrading of a regional centre to the state capital of Lower Austria (St Pölten). However, it is common to both of the cases that they are never considered to be part of urban policy. This lack of an objective ‘urban policy’ is not because there are no social, economic and environmental issues that appear mainly in cities and urban areas in Austria as they do in other European countries. The difference is that other countries make these issues a topic of a specific policy area: this may be derived from the framework of constitution and from the financial endowment of the municipalities. The Austrian constitution does not mention urban policy as a field of activity and competence of the federation (Bund), it does not even provide a competence for spatial planning to the national government. Therefore, there is no federal ministry appointed to deal with matters like urban politics. In addition, the states do not apply their actual competence for comprehensive spatial planning to steer urban development. It can be observed that all the state governments tend to prefer to focus their development policy efforts on their respective (‘weak’) peripheries rather than their (‘strong’) central areas. Based on the constitutional right to self-governance the municipalities enjoy a relatively high degree of independence in administrative matters from the states and the federation. The second main reason for the relatively strong position of cities (and municipalities at the whole) is the system of distribution of tax revenues to all levels of territorial authorities laid down in the Revenue Equalisation Law. This implies for the majority of the municipalities considerable financial independence from the higher tiers of policy-making in general. That independence is at the same time the grounds for intensive competition between the municipalities concerning development policies. In addition, it is significantly fuelled by the fact that, over and above the scope of legislative competence, all the territorial authorities have the power to implement measures in the sphere of public business administration for which there are no competence limits and which cover economic activities within the scope of private law (e.g. land purchases,

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investment incentives). Within the urban regions, neither state governments nor federal government are used to intervene in this fierce territorial competition. The pattern of the spatial distribution of cities in Austria has been fairly stable during many decades. This fact, however, cannot be underpinned by statistical data since there is no statistical standard information available for urban regions; so far a common delimitation for urban regions does not even exist. The population changes did not cause major changes in large-scale settlement patterns (on the intra-regional scale suburbanisation is topical, of course). This stability may disappear in the context of the full integration of the neighbouring candidate EU countries (with several cities close to the border) in spring 2004 and due to the development of the Trans-European transport networks. However, there are no signs of a fundamental change of federal or state politics aimed at changing urban policy. References Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning (ÖIR) (1992), Regionale Verteilungswirkungen öffentlicher Haushalte; Gutachten des Österreichischen Instituts für Raumplanung, No. 97, Vienna. European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (1999), European Commission. Draxler, H. (1994), Neuordnung der Finanzierung und Planung des ÖPNV mit Hilfe von Verkehrverbünden. In Wer bezahlt den öffentlichen Verkehr?, Vienna: AKStandpunkte. Österreichische Raumordnungskonferenz (ÖROK) (2002), Zehnter Raumordnungsbericht, ÖROK Schriftenreihe 160, Vienna.

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Chapter 5

Urban Policies in Belgium: A Puff-pastry with a Bittersweet Aftertaste? Maarten Loopmans, Sarah Luyten and Christian Kesteloot1

5.1

Introduction: Belgium as a Cityscape

With an average population density of 339 inhabitants per km2, Belgium is one of the most urbanised countries in Europe. Most Belgian cities, although dating back from the Middle Ages, experienced a major growth period under the influence of nineteenth-century industrialisation. Belgium, and especially Flanders, has a dense network of small cities and towns and only 23 per cent of the population does not live in the commuter zone of one of the 17 urban regions with more than 80,000 inhabitants. These 17 urban regions occupy 26 per cent of the total surface area of Belgium, but they comprise 57 per cent of the population, 65 per cent of the employment and 73 per cent of the executive positions (Merenne et al., 1997, p. 14, 1991 statistics). Moreover, suburbanisation has had an important effect on the Belgian landscape. Suburbanisation occupied a central place in the Fordist regulation of consumption, enabling the large-scale consumption of durables through the continuous expansion of the size of housing. Post-war housing and spatial policies largely encouraged this movement, as much through the massive financial support for self-built detached housing as through the construction of a dense network of rail- and motorways and public utilities and the absence of restrictive physical planning until the late 1970s. In Flanders, suburbanisation has accrued the dominant cities (Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and Leuven) together in one densely built zone with an average population density of more than 600 inhabitants per km2. The communities of this zone show increasing urban characteristics, both morphologically and economically (Kesteloot, 2003, p. 15), causing a tendency to speak of the ‘Flemish Diamond’ as one vast ‘nebular city’ (de Meulder et al., 1999). A similar urban accretion, though mainly resulting from nineteenth and early twentieth century industrialisation, is found in the Sambre-Meuse valley, linking up the Walloon cities of Mons, La Louvière, Charleroi, Namur and Liège. 1

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

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5.2

National Policy Responses to Urban Challenges in Europe

A Puff-pastry of Government Tiers

The Federal Kingdom of Belgium has indisputably the most complex institutional framework of all European countries, a reflection of several rounds of constitutional reform of the originally unitary Belgian state since 1970 (de Clerq et al., 2000). Since 1989 there have been four directly-elected decision levels (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1 The Belgian institutional context The first one is the federal level, whose main competencies are finance, social security, defence, police, justice and foreign policy. The second level of competencies is divided between (language) communities (responsible for personal matters, such as education, culture, health, and social policies) and territorial regions (responsible for space-related matters, such as economy, employment, agriculture, environmental policy, transport, housing, spatial planning, etc.). On this level, both communities and regions have their own parliamentary assembly (called the Council) and government (called the Executive), although in Flanders, while legally not merged, the region and the community are organised and managed as one entity – renamed the Flemish Parliament and Government – because of the spatial quasi-coincidence of

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community and region. The two other regions (the Brussels Capital Region and the Walloon Region) are shared by two language communities, respectively French and Flemish and French and German, which has precluded the merger of community and regional responsibilities into the hands of one government. In Brussels, the French Community Commission and the Flemish Community Commission represent both language communities. Since both language communities share the same territory and the introduction of sub-nationalities was rejected, an additional Common Community Commission cares for the institutions open to both groups of residents. Although a provincial level exists in Belgium, it has only limited responsibilities in relation to urban policies, as municipalities directly relate to the federal or regional level for these matters. The provincial impact has so far been limited to supportive measures such as offering training and information to local professionals, and in the coming years their responsibilities are expected to be even more limited.2 Table 5.1 Primary government expenditures (debt redemption excluded)

Federal government Regional governments Local governments (provinces and municipalities) Social security

Amount of € (in billions)

Percentage (social security not included)

59.6 35.1

53.4 31.5

16.9 49.2

15.1 –

Source: Dexia, 2003.

The municipalities constitute the last elected decision-making level and take care of the most immediate and local public matters. There is a long tradition of municipal autonomy and although municipalities operate within legal frameworks set up by the upper levels of the state, they have a relatively high degree of independence, which is sometimes used to hinder regional or federal decisions. On the other hand, both federalisation and new policies addressing new societal needs (among which urban policy) resulted in new tasks devolved to the municipalities by upper levels. Since 2002, municipalities are under control of the Regions. However, thanks to the holding of dual mandates, the municipalities exert strong influence on upper tiers of government. This is detrimental to larger cities, who make up only a small minority of the 589 municipalities and whose 2

The Brussels Capital Region is not included in a province since the splitting of the Brabant province into a Flemish and a Walloon Brabant province in 1995.

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representatives are thus often shouted down in parliament. In 2002, local authorities (municipalities and provinces) accounted for only 15 per cent of total public expenditure at all levels, with the important budget for social security (managed at the federal level) not included. The federal government retains the main responsibilities with 53 per cent of all expenditures, while the regional level counts for 32 per cent of all expenditures (Dexia, 2003). The local level has changed significantly since the 1970s. Firstly, a large-scale merger of municipalities in 1977, meant to increase governmental efficiency, reduced their number from 2,359 to 589, but none of the 17 urban regions has merged into one single municipality. The 19 municipalities that make up the Brussels Capital Region did not merge until very recently, and the city of Antwerp only merged with 11 of its neighbouring municipalities in 1983 (Ackaert and Dekien, 1989). Secondly, a 1997 revision of the federal Municipal Law made it possible for municipalities of more than 100,000 inhabitants to create intra-municipal districts. So far, Antwerp is the only municipality to have taken this opportunity, changing the former independent municipalities into districts with limited responsibilities, mainly in the fields of cultural matters and local public space. Table 5.2 Economic distribution of municipal revenues (as % of total revenues)

Belgium Flanders Brussels Capital Region Wallonia

Local taxes

General funds

Specific subsidies

Services

Loans

44.9 47.5 45.5 40.5

20.2 19.5 19.1 21.8

20.8 16.4 24.0 26.9

4.5 4.3 5.2 3.8

9.6 12.3 6.2 7.0

Source: Dexia, 2003.

Local revenues stem from three important sources: local taxes, specific subsidies and general funds (Table 5.2).3 Among them, local taxes are increasingly dominant. On average, they account for 45 per cent of the local revenues in 2002 (an increase with about 10 per cent since 1990 and an all-time high). Yet differences among the regions exist, with local taxes in Flanders and Brussels providing respectively 48 and 46 per cent of the total local revenue, while in the Walloon region they account for only 41 per cent of local revenues (Dexia, 2003). Although a wide variety of specific local taxes exists, only two are crucial for the financial situation of the municipalities, providing on average 80 per cent of the local tax revenue: the additional tax on the federal income tax (Aanvullende Belasting op de Personenbelasting: APB) and the additional tax on the federal property 3

A small part are incomes generated from paid services and goods and loans (e.g. dividends collected from participation in public-private enterprises).

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tax (Opcentiemen op de Onroerende Voorheffing: OOV). APB is levied by the municipality where the taxpayer lives, OOV where his/her property is located. The APB poses problems for the larger cities and peripheral rural communities, who experienced a loss of higher-income inhabitants as a consequence of suburbanisation and emigration: to some extent, cities compensate for this loss by higher revenues through the OOV on their extensive building stock. Yet again, suburbanisation of businesses and a devaluation of the housing stock threaten the urban tax base. Overall, the dominance of local taxes in local revenues has created considerable discrepancies in fiscal power among municipalities. The richest municipality gains 3.7 times more per capita on APB than the poorest and for OOV the ratio is even higher at 9.8. Larger cities in particular suffer from low tax revenues and high expenditures due to selective suburbanisation and the failure of urban regions to merge under one local government. Most larger cities experienced a period of financial hardship in the late 1970s and 1980s, requiring the intervention of higher-level authorities to lighten the increasing burden of debts. With the emphasis being put on additional taxes, municipalities also suffer from a loss of income whenever federal taxes are lowered, as happened in 2001. The prime instruments for mitigating intermunicipal income inequality are a number of funds, the largest one being the Municipality Fund (Gemeentefonds). Since 1989, most funds have been coordinated at the regional level and their history shows important variations among the regions. In Flanders, 20 per cent of local revenues were provided for by regional funds in 2002; the Flemish Municipality Fund accounting for about 18 per cent (19.5 per cent in 1990). This Fund aims mainly at compensating for the financial problems of larger cities, guaranteeing especially Antwerp and Ghent a large share of the total budget. Recently, the Fund has increased considerably in importance: in 2002 it was increased by about 7.5 per cent to €1,220 million, but for 2003 the budget rose even more, by nearly €1,545 million, through a merger with other existing funds. At the same time its distributive criteria have been reviewed. The reorientation of the Municipality Fund has had an overall redistributing effect, decreasing the share rich suburban municipalities get from the fund in favour of poorer rural municipalities in the Flemish periphery. Some large cities (notably Ghent and Bruges) face a decrease of the share they receive from the Fund (Cabus, 2002). In 1990, the Walloon Municipality Fund provided on average 27 per cent of the municipal budgets. By 2002, however, the importance of the Fund had declined to more or less the same level as the Flemish one (accounting for 21 per cent of local revenues). The distribution philosophy of the Walloon Municipality Fund resembles the Flemish one to a large extent. The two largest cities, Charleroi and Liège, receive nearly one third of the fund, while the rest goes to the other municipalities, the largest 22 of which have a privileged position. As in Flanders, recent measures have aimed at reinforcing the role of the Municipality Fund. Since 1997 the fund has again been adapted to the consumption index, more or less stabilising its relative importance in the municipal budget. In 2001 and 2002, Walloon municipalities enjoyed a 6.5 per cent rise of revenues through the

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‘Plan Tonus’, an additional Fund created by the regional government in order to relieve the burden of local fiscal taxation. The Plan has two axes: Tonus I provides temporal financial aid between 2001 and 2004 to all eligible municipalities except for the four largest cities Liège, Charleroi, Mons and Namur (€36.5 million in 2003); Tonus II provides structural, but conditional aid through loans (€43.4 million in 2003) to those municipalities willing to participate in a programme for local administrative reorganisation, aimed at a greater efficiency of the local government. In 2003, 60 municipalities applied for aid from Tonus II (Union des villes et communes de Wallonie, 2002). In the Brussels Capital Region, only 19 per cent of the municipal budgets were gained from Funds in 2002; the Brussels Municipality Fund provides no more than 13 per cent. Another 20 per cent of the municipal revenue were provided for by specific subsidies of both the federal and regional authorities for, among others, the municipal school system and the local police. The city of Brussels, one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels Capital Region, received a special donation from the federal government for its functions as the Capital of Belgium and Europe, amounting to €84.9 million in 2003 (Dexia, 2003). Something Global, Something Local: Economic and Social Conditions of the Five Main Cities Within the Belgian urban system, five cities are classified as large cities, the next level being that of regional cities. These five cities are distinct from each other both in the socio-economic and political field (Table 5.3). Table 5.3 Some socio-economic indicators for Belgium’s five large cities (2004) City

Population

Brussels Capital Region 1,000,000 Antwerp 455,000 Liège 185,000 Ghent 229,000 Charleroi 201,000

Employment Unemployment Av. household Foreigners level income (% of (% of (% of national city workforce) av., 2000) population)

599,000 241,000 74,000 134,000 79,000

15 31 14 32

97 90 90 94 80

26 11 16 6 15

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Brussels4 clearly dominates the Belgian urban hierarchy, in terms of population and employment, as well as GDP. Hosting major international institutions of both NATO and the European Union, the city is well embedded in global networks of power and attracts the bulk of foreign investment in Belgium (Elmhorn, 2001). Brussels specifically dominates tertiary sector investments, concentrating about 33 per cent of employment in foreign tertiary sector businesses within the Brussels Capital Region. National tertiary sector employment is equally concentrated in Brussels. Furthermore, the bulk of federal, Flemish, French Community and of course Brussels government officials are employed within the city’s borders. Secondary sector employment has steadily decreased since the 1960s and is now of minor importance for the Brussels economy, providing only 8 per cent of all employment. Yet it is equally strongly internationalised, with foreign firms providing about 39 per cent of all secondary sector employment in Brussels, compared to a national average of 27 per cent (Vanneste et al., 2003). Overall, the importance of Brussels for the national economy is great: the Brussels Capital Region on its own produces 15 per cent of the country’s GDP (on 0.5 per cent of its area and with less than 10 per cent of its population). At the same time, Brussels faces serious socio-economic problems. Statistics for 2004 show that the unemployment rate was 22 per cent, and even reached 32 per cent in its worst-off municipalities. Furthermore, the average household income5 of the BCR had dropped from 160 per cent of the national average in 1963 to 97 per cent of the national average (€23,887) in 2000. This figure hides relatively strong disparities between a poor inner city and wealthy suburbs. Segregation and unemployment, but also large net wage disparities, combined to cause this contrast. Highly-skilled workers earn between two and three times the net wage of a low-skilled worker. Wage disparities in Brussels are higher than in most other major northwestern European cities, except for Paris, Luxembourg and Berlin (UBS, 2003). This social polarisation has been accompanied by an increasing spatial polarisation, mainly as a consequence of massive suburbanisation of the affluent population, as well as secondary and tertiary jobs (Kesteloot, 2000; see also Colard and Vandermotten, 1996 and Moyart, 2000 for suburbanisation of employment). The result of this process is a sharp distinction between an affluent suburban population of professional service workers and an increasingly poor population of low-skilled former industrial or service workers, overwhelmingly from immigrant origin, in the city centre. Consequently, the Brussels urban region contains the municipalities with both the highest and the lowest average household income of the country (the last having an average income per capita of only 44 per cent of the first in 2000). The internationalisation of the Brussels economy is also reflected in the ethnic composition of its population. During the 1990s foreigners accounted for 30 per 4 Further references to Brussels are to the Brussels Capital Region and not the municipality of Brussels, which is only one of the 19 municipalities of the Region. 5 This is measured by the average net taxable income per tax payer.

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cent of the population. However, successive laws (effective in 1985, 1992 and 2000) have enabled foreigners to obtain Belgian nationality. As a result, the share of foreign nationals has dropped to 26 per cent in 2004. Moreover, the Brussels foreign population shows a high degree of socio-economic heterogeneity, including descendants from Mediterranean ‘guest workers’, newcomers from these countries through marriage and family reunification immigration, Third World refugees and undocumented immigrants, as well as an important number of highly-skilled immigrants from industrialised countries, particularly the so-called ‘Eurocrats’ working in the extensive European administration (Kesteloot, 2000). Belgium’s second largest city, Antwerp, is the only one after Brussels that also attracts significant international investment, mostly through its port (second only in Europe to Rotterdam) and its position as a world centre of the diamond trade and petrochemical industry (Vanneste et al., 2003). The Antwerp district hosts about 12 per cent of all employment in international tertiary sector businesses, but most of all Antwerp dominates international investment in the secondary sector (14 per cent of investments in the sector, compared to only 11 per cent for the Brussels Capital Region). Like Brussels, Antwerp experienced important suburbanisation from the 1950s onwards. Yet unlike Brussels, the city merged in 1983 with its surrounding municipalities, thus including most of its agglomeration and even parts of its suburban area within its administrative borders. Today, the city of Antwerp counts about half of the more than 900,000 inhabitants in the urban region. In 1999, administrative decentralisation returned some of the responsibilities to the original municipalities, now designated ‘districts’ within the city of Antwerp. The average household income in Antwerp is lower than in Brussels (it reaches only 90 per cent of the national average), but the unemployment rate remains below 15 per cent (2004 data) and socio-spatial differences are less obvious. The average household income of the poorest district of the city equals 55 per cent of the one in the richest municipality within the urban region. Antwerp is also ethnically more homogeneous than Brussels, with 11 per cent of its population holding a foreign nationality, a little more than 7 per cent of them coming from outside the European Union. The largest ethnic minorities are the Jewish (dominating the diamond trade in the city) and the Moroccan (who originally came to Antwerp as guest workers). Liège, with an urban region of 625,000 inhabitants, occupies the third position in the Belgian urban hierarchy (in 1977, only a few municipalities accepted a merger with Liège and this explains the city’s relatively low population figure). As a relic of its nineteenth-century industrial expansion, its economic structure is characterised by the dominance of heavy industry, relying to a large extent on metallurgic activities since the closure or the coal mines. Internationally, Liège cannot compete with the two larger urban regions of Brussels and Antwerp, but as the major city in Wallonia it does host the bulk of this region’s service sector employment.

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More so than Antwerp and Brussels, Liège has retained part of its bourgeois population in the city centre, early suburbanisation being hampered by the steep slopes of the River Meuse, which significantly reduced accessibility to the city centre. Instead, heavy industry and worker suburbs developed around the bourgeois core. Suburbanisation has colonised the southern periphery of the city only in more recent times (Kesteloot et al., 2001). Hence, while unemployment levels in Liège are notably higher (31 per cent in 2004), the average income is nonetheless comparable to that of Antwerp. The foreign population of Liège represents 16 per cent of the total. Again, this is a reflection of its industrial past: Italian and to a lesser extent French and Moroccan nationals dominate the foreign population. Most of them were attracted to work in the coal mines and the steel industry. Ghent and Charleroi, both with an urban region of about 400,000 inhabitants rank fourth and fifth in the Belgian urban hierarchy. The nineteenth-century Ghent economy was dominated by textile manufacturing, but nowadays its port is the main site for secondary sector employment, hosting a mix of traditional industries (car manufacturing and steelworks), as well as more recent smallscale innovative industries (bioengineering). Secondary sector employment has showed a significant decline over the last decade, but this has been more than compensated by employment growth in the tertiary sector, although the relative importance of the latter (providing now almost three-quarters of employment) is still somewhat lower than in the other large Belgian cities. Only 13.6 per cent of its working force is unemployed (2004 statistics). As a substantially smaller city, Ghent succeeded in incorporating a relatively high share of its suburban ring during the 1977 merger of municipalities. As a consequence, the average household income in the city of Ghent (94 per cent of the national average) is notably higher than in Antwerp or Liège, but it remains below that of the Brussels Capital Region. Only a little more than 6 per cent of the city’s population holds a foreign nationality: almost one third of them are Turkish nationals. Charleroi is the largest urban centre in the ‘Black Country’, the Hainaut coalfield conurbation, ranging (west to east) from Mons over La Louvière to Charleroi. As in Liège, heavy industry dating from the nineteenth century has been in decline for several decades, but has not been offset by a considerable increase in employment in other sectors. Unemployment has soared to a level of 32 per cent (in 2004). Charleroi has the lowest average household income of the 17 larger cities in Belgium – just above 80 per cent of the Belgian average. Moreover, the city does not encompass many significantly richer suburban municipalities; the entire region is more or less dominated by working class neighbourhoods. Like Liège, Charleroi has a larger foreign population than Flemish cities. About 15 per cent of the Charleroi population does not have the Belgian nationality; the majority being Italian nationals, as well as (to a lesser extent) Turks, Moroccans and Algerians.

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From Anti-Urbanism to Willy-Nilly Urban Policies Until recently, upper governmental tiers in Belgium had not paid much attention to urban problems. Even by 1989, Cheshire and Hay concluded in their study on urban problems in Europe that ‘there does not exist in Belgium at either the national or regional level any real policy designed to combat urban decline’ (Cheshire and Hay, 1989, p. 181). This lack of attention to urban problems was explained by the specific power relations in Belgian politics. Since 1884 the Catholic Church and bourgeoisie have occupied a hegemonic position in the Belgian political landscape. From the late nineteenth century onwards, spatial policies – involving housing and mobility measures – were applied next to an associational and political compartmentalisation along socio-economic lines (called ‘pillarisation’) to conserve this dominance and to hamper the rise of secularisation and the socialist movement by countering the spatial concentration of workers in the cities (Kesteloot and de Maesschalck, 2001). The development of a dense network of public transport connecting the cities with the surrounding villages facilitated commuting and kept the workers’ families outside the cities. The stimulation of home ownership and individual housing promotion as an answer to the housing problem equally drew skilled workers away from the central working-class neighbourhoods to the urban fringe where land prices where cheaper. However, the bottom of the housing market was left untouched and unskilled workers and the ‘lumpenproletariat’ remained concentrated in inner city slums (Knops, 1981). After the First World War the Socialist Party gained power and stimulated social housing. They promoted collective living and supported the idea of the garden city. These initiatives were soon bypassed by a new Catholic law promoting individual housing, and did not have much effect on inner city problems. The few garden cities that were realised were developed on the urban fringe where land prices were low. The housing cost, together with the cost for commuting, was too high for the lower income groups in inner city neighbourhoods (Kesteloot, 1990). After the Second World War, the promotion of individual housing and home ownership on the periphery continued to dominate housing policy and led to a suburbanisation boom in the 1960s. Home ownership became an important element of the Fordist consumption-driven economic growth. New laws brought in after the Second World War stimulated massive but still socially selective suburbanisation. At the same time, inner city neighbourhoods faced a decline in their residential function: the development of a central business district together with massive suburbanisation and the generalisation of car-ownership increased demand for more inner city space for offices and access roads. During the zenith of the Fordist welfare state in the 1950s and 1960s, the slum clearance law of 1953 paved the way for large-scale levelling of old inner city neighbourhoods in favour of high-rise social housing, but the result was more often an increase in office buildings and commercial functions. A series of inner-city neighbourhoods

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were demolished for the construction of roads and office buildings in Brussels North, where the most extreme example is the eviction of about 10,000 inhabitants (Lievens et al., 1975). However, in the 1960s and 1970s in Belgium, as elsewhere in Europe, residents of deprived neighbourhoods who were under threat from urban restructuring started to mobilise against the ‘neglect’ of their interests in urban policy initiatives, without great success. Because of their weakening financial position, urban or industrialised municipalities were more receptive to the demands of speculators and investors than of their own, mostly low-income population (with a growing share of non-voting foreigners) and urban citizens did not receive much attention on the national level either. The Minister of Public Works did not launch its five pilot projects for urban renewal, focusing on the physical restructuring of working-class urban neighbourhoods, until 1975. Meanwhile, the federalisation process had taken off and responsibilities for urban renewal and planning at the regional level were devolved in 1974. However, federalisation was not complete, and the regional governments could operate independently of the federal level, until 1989. Hence, while the first concrete steps towards urban renewal in Belgium were taken by the regions, they showed remarkable similarities in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels as they were practically run ‘under custody’ of the federal level. During the 1970s and 1980s, all three regions developed a spin-off of the 1973 urban renewal experiment. In Wallonia, urban renewal started as early as 1975, in Brussels in 1977 and in Flanders it took until 1983 before, in the aftermath of the European campaign for social urban renewal, a fund was raised to support local urban renewal projects (Knops and Vlaeminck, 1983; Heughebaert, 1988). These measures were aimed at the ‘social’ urban renewal of delimited areas, involving participation of inhabitants, maintaining the functional mix of the area and paying attention to local needs in terms of facilities and public space (Noel et al., 2001). However, an evaluation of the social urban renewal policies in the three regions shows poor results. In Flanders for instance, only 44 of the 151 selected areas reached the operational stage, while the most deprived areas had not even been selected. Moreover, largescale participation of inhabitants in projects that were soon left to their fate created a lot of frustrations (de Decker, 1994). The results of urban renewal in Brussels were equally meagre (Noël, 1998). Procedures went very slow and there was not so much enthusiasm among the municipalities who had to take initiative and submit renewal projects to the government. In 1993, of the 200,000 that had been considered in need of renovation in the 1970s, only 2,163 houses had been renovated. Moreover, when an individual subsidy for dwelling renewal was established in 1983, it became clear that only middle-class inhabitants took advantage of renewal funds and that lower-income groups were displaced (Becker et al. 1989). At the end of the 1980s a new approach was developed in Flanders and Brussels, based on solid contracts between the higher and local authorities, limited in time and focusing more on socio-economic problems of deprived

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neighbourhoods. The reason for this development can be found not only in the negative evaluation of earlier approaches, but also in the breakthrough of extremeright parties in the municipal elections of 1988 in both regions. In particular, the Vlaams Blok, a Flemish party with an extreme nationalist and racist ideology, grew considerably (de Decker et al., 2004). In the 1988 elections they grew from almost nothing to 17 per cent in the city of Antwerp and also drew a considerable share of the Flemish votes in several Brussels municipalities. The Socialist Party in particular seemed to have lost votes to the extreme right. The Vlaams Blok quickly rose to become a regional, if not national, threat to political stability. The party received 24 per cent of all Flemish votes in the last regional elections (2004). It particularly dominates in the larger cities Brussels,6 Antwerp and Ghent, where it seems to draw its main support from the ‘urban poor’ (Swyngedouw, 1992; Bijttebier et al., 1992). This political earthquake has drawn attention to the problems of inhabitants of deprived neighbourhoods in cities, most notably deteriorating living environments, poverty, employment shortage, increasing feelings of insecurity and the difficulties related to the cohabitation of native Belgians and young immigrants’ offspring in the inner-city neighbourhoods (Loopmans et al., 2003). Concurrently, an extension of regional competencies in the wake of a new round of federalisation offered the opportunity to transform urban policy from a mere physical restructuring of the building stock into a more ‘integrated’ approach. From 1989 onwards, several initiatives were set up focusing on urban social problems and/or insisting on the necessity of ‘narrowing the gap’ between politicians and the people (Vranken and Geldof, 1991; p. 102). In Flanders, the first more or less coordinated and structured attempt to address the problems of underprivileged inner-city dwellers was the Flemish Fund for the Integration of the Underprivileged (Vlaams Fonds voor de Integratie van Kansarmen: VFIK), initiated in 1991. This Fund received 1,218 million BEF (€30 million) to combat exclusion in 15 municipalities (mainly larger cities and former mining towns in the provence of Limburg) with the largest concentration of poor and immigrant communities. Yet the VFIK received heavy critiques. A central objection was the lack of a ‘structural’ and ‘integrated’ approach. The means were dispersed among too many, unrelated and often temporary projects. The VFIK was also largely oriented towards the social sector, and did not succeed in addressing related issues, such as job creation and housing (Baert and Fauconnier, 1995). Moreover it did not seem to reach any electoral effect: in 1995, the Vlaams Blok again achieved spectacular results. However, the VFIK-approach in Antwerp did command respect. Under the European pilot project URBAN I, a neighbourhood development corporation (BuurtOntwikkelingsMaatschappij: BOM) was set up as an independent umbrella organisation, merging funds from several origins (EU, VFIK and others) into one integral ‘neighbourhood development project’, not restricted to the welfare 6

That is among the voters for the Flemish members of the Council of the Brussels Capital Region and the Flemish Community Commission.

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sector, but including housing, economy and urban planning as well (Hobin, 1995; van Hove and Nieuwinckel, 1996). This would be one of the main sources of inspiration when the first explicitly ‘urban’ policy saw the light in Flanders in 1995. In 1989, the newly-established Brussels government decided to create its own urban renewal policy. However, the first initiatives were not taken until 1994, when the so-called ‘neighbourhood contracts’ between the BCR and the municipalities came into existence. The neighbourhood contracts are limited to the perimeter of the ‘Zone for the Development of the Residential Function and Renewal’ (Ruimte voor Versterkte Ontwikkeling van de Huisvesting en de Stadsvernieuwing: RVOHS) defined in the Regional Development Plan of 1995. The delimitation basis is the bad environmental and housing quality, but the whole area is also characterised by an accumulation of social deprivation characteristics such as high youth unemployment, high crime rates and poverty. The neighbourhood contracts were a way to circumvent the municipal level, deemed incapable of coordinating urban redevelopment after the poor result of the 1977 policy: the BCR took the leading role and compelled the municipalities to develop projects for the designated areas. Each year the government selects four neighbourhoods: the contracts run for four years. Their focus is on the redevelopment of housing and public space and they are co-financed by the region, the municipality and (tentatively) the private sector. Nevertheless, although the BCR has no power on social matters, the contracts have a social component aimed at enhancing social integration (Luyten and Kesteloot, 2003). Wallonia has not been affected by the electoral rise of extreme-right parties (see Swyngedouw, 1998) but due to the collapse of its economic base of heavy industry and mining, the Region has faced much more severe problems of unemployment, poverty and a deteriorating housing stock. Hence, in Wallonia too, poverty and worsening living conditions in poor neighbourhoods have started to attract attention. A territorial approach to these problems was initiated in 1991 and officially installed in 1994 with the delimitation of ‘priority zones for intervention’ (ZIPs) (Moriau, 1996). Their delimitation was based upon quantitative measures of poverty and housing conditions. So far, four types of ZIPs have been introduced. ZIP1 zones are areas where the housing market is under strong pressure and where affordable good quality housing is scarce; ZIP2 focuses on the rehabilitation of the built environment, and in ZIP3 the above-mentioned approaches are combined with a focus on social problems such as poverty, high unemployment, drug abuse, crime and the living together of different ethnic communities. ZIP4 zones face similar problems as ZIP3 areas, but are located in social housing estates. The ZIP initiative does not replace the ‘urban renewal’ subsidies, but subsidies are more considerable when applied to a ZIP. Moreover, since 1995 the Region has increased its influence and control, by compelling the municipalities to write an action plan when applying for subsidies. Although the regional government has no power on social matters and limits subsidies to interventions in the built environment, the action plan

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needs to contain anticipated social and economic measures such as training, social economy, etc. In 1992, after yet another electoral victory by extreme right, the situation of the Belgian inner cities once again attracted the attention of the federal level. In the light of its responsibility for the police forces (together with the municipalities), the government focused on crime prevention. It started ‘safety contracts’ in collaboration with 12 cities. The contracts go beyond the regular activities of police forces as they intend to tackle the causes, not the symptoms. As well as measures intended to enhance police efficiency, there are preventive measures including training and employment, targeted at specific groups, such as youth delinquents, drug users, prostitutes, hooligans, etc. After the inclusion of urban renewal in the preventive measures in 1996, the initiative was renamed ‘safety and society contracts’ because of the broader approach (Vranken et al., 2001). In 2002, the contracts became bi-annual and they were renamed ‘safety and prevention contracts’. Seventy-three municipalities are involved in such contracts. Visions for an Urban Future The above-mentioned regional and federal instruments for urban policy were all developed on a more-or-less ad-hoc basis, as a reaction to problems that were often not even exclusively faced by urban municipalities. However, in the 1990s Flanders and Wallonia started to develop a vision of the state and future of their cities in relation to the spatial, social and economic development of the region. The Brussels Capital Region got its first own regional parliament and government in 1989 and started the same process of defining a project for the future. The problems and opportunities of the cities in Flanders and Wallonia and those of Brussels all figure in the so-called strategic plans that the regions adopted in the second half of the 1990s (de Brabander, 1998). The central goals of the already-mentioned Regional Development Plan for Brussels (1995) are formulated in terms of inhabitants and employment. The plan stresses the problems attached to the loss of population to the surrounding suburban municipalities situated in Wallonia and Flanders and the employment mismatch (nearly half of the workforce are commuters while unemployment is concentrated in the region). The region wants to increase its population and to promote employment in the next decade not only by taking advantage of the developing service sector, but also by drastically curbing ongoing deindustrialisation. The Spatial Structure Plan for Flanders (RSV) was adopted in 1997. The plan stresses the importance of the central urban network Antwerp-Leuven-BrusselsGhent (the so-called ‘Flemish Diamond’) for economic development but at the same time acknowledges the problematic nature of the spatial claims made by suburbanisation and the resulting fiscal problems in the cities. Since 1997, the official Flemish spatial policy has implied the concentration of housing as well

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as economic development in existing centres. Brussels and as Antwerp are to be supported to integrate into a European network of international cities. In Wallonia, the Regional Plan for Spatial Planning (PRATW) equally focuses on the urban network, forming a triangle between Brussels and the urban axis along the rivers Sambre and Meuse between Charleroi and Liège. The plan anticipates a further integration and development of the international regions at the borders, being Charleroi-Lille (Belgium-France), Liège-AachenMaastricht (Belgium-Germany-Netherlands) and Arlon-Luxembourg (BelgiumLuxembourg). The PRATW is aware of existing tendencies that could thwart this development, namely large-scale suburbanisation of the Walloon urban regions (even more intense than that in Flanders) on the one hand, and massive deindustrialisation and spatial fragmentation resulting from early industrialisation and subsequent brown fields on the other. The main aim of urban policy is to curb these tendencies. 5.3

On the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century: The Age of the City?

In 1995 the Flemish government was the first to appoint a Minister for Urban Policy. The means of the VFIK were merged with other existing funds and with new means into a new Social Impulse Fund (SIF). While its forerunner the VFIK had flavoured social policy with a territorial touch, focusing on cities with high rates of poverty, the new fund would become the spearhead of what was meant to be the first multidisciplinary and multifaceted urban policy in Flanders (see Peeters, 1996; de Decker, 1999b). By merging different funds into one SIF and adding new means, the budget for urban policy increased to a large extent. Starting with 4.5 billion BEF (about €110 million) in 1996, it would increase with 1 billion BEF (€25 million) per year up to 7.5 billion BEF (€186 million) in 1999. Inspired by the social urban renewal policy of the 1980s and its follow-up in Antwerp under the wings of the BOM, as well as the ‘integral approach’ of the Dutch Large Cities Policy (Grotestedenbeleid), the SIF would put more stress on territorial and integral measures than its VFIK-forerunner. The goals of the SIF were threefold: the improvement of the quality of life in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and cities, the tackling of poverty (‘the war on poverty’) and the promotion of well-being (Belgisch Staatsblad, 1996). The SIF aimed to advance a physical, social and economic restructuring of cities (de Decker et al., 1996). Yet at the same time, under the electoral pressure of the Vlaams Blok, poverty and deprivation stayed at the heart of the analysis (Loopmans, 2002). Concerned municipalities were not always keen to address these questions (among other reasons because the immigrant population concerned had no political rights and such a policy would not generate any electoral advantage), but the Flemish government succeeded in securing this attention at the local level also by applying a relatively firm top-down approach. First of all, this involved strong selectivity in funding. Like the VFIK, the SIF used poverty criteria to

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select municipalities for funding and to decide on the level of funding for each municipality (de Coninck and Vandenberghe, 1996). Secondly, a special SIFadministration was set up in order to control local expenditures. Every selected municipality was required to draw up a detailed long-term (three years) SIF-policy plan that had to be confirmed by the Flemish government in a written agreement with the municipality. The plan had to depart from an explicit analysis of the ‘needs concerning poverty, employment and unemployment, housing and social deprivation in the municipality’ and had to define clearly the expected results, in order to enable monitoring (Belgisch Staatsblad, 1996). The SIF received positive comments (Kesteloot et al., 2000; Vlaams Parlement, 2000), but it did not survive the next elections in 1999. Two events led to this policy turn. Firstly, another electoral victory of the Vlaams Blok made clear that the ‘war on poverty’ had not driven back the extreme right. On the contrary, the extreme-right party succeeded in gaining an increasing number of votes in the well-to-do and in suburban districts (de Maesschalck, 2000). Secondly, the liberal (rightist) party VLD re-entered the government after ten years in opposition. In its inaugural speech, the new government announced a different urban policy approach, paying more attention to urban competitiveness, security and quality of life instead of poverty and exclusion (Vlaamse Regering, 1999). Partly motivated by the need to bring urban policy more into line with the formulations of the RSV, the main goal in urban policy was reformulated as ‘countering the depopulation of urban areas by enhancing the quality of life’, more specifically for young families, middle- and high-income groups and ‘active’ seniors (van Grembergen, 2001). This policy shift was warmly welcomed by many cities. Because they were facing a fiscal crisis due to selective suburbanisation, they much preferred this ‘urban’ definition of the policy to the ‘social’ assignments of SIF (Boudry et al., 1999). Some smaller initiatives saw the light immediately afterwards, such as the conception of the first Flemish ‘White Paper on Urban Policy’ by an academic Task Force (which however appeared in 2003, one year after all reforms were settled) and a small-scale (€25 million) competitive bidding programme for urban development projects in public–private partnership (Vlaamse Regering, 2001a). The most influential policy change was the replacement of the SIF by the ‘City Fund’ (Stedenfonds) in 2003. This City Fund has been left with only half of the SIF budget (the other half was diverted to the ‘Municipality Fund’) yet has remained the main instrument for urban policy. Its main goals are the attraction of middle- and high-income groups to the city and a ‘strengthening of the social basis for democracy’ (Vlaams Parlement, 2002). The City Fund will have to reach these aims by enhancing the quality of life and improving the municipal management in cities, and by countering ‘dualisation’. The Flemish government stresses the need to shift emphasis from problems to potentials, which is reflected in the new distribution criteria of the Fund: municipalities are no longer selected on the basis of needs but on their position in the Flemish urban hierarchy (the 13 largest cities and Brussels are concerned; see Loopmans, 2003a). Moreover, municipalities are encouraged to abandon the restriction of neighbourhood

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development to the most needy areas and to favour the prevention of future downgrading in other neighbourhoods (Vlaams Parlement, 2002). The City Fund also leaves more autonomy to the local authorities. Like the SIF, it demands a written agreement between the regional and local authorities, but this agreement is valid for six years instead of three and does not require a very detailed spelling out of results. While this will probably make policy monitoring more difficult, the regional government does expect a more efficient policy because the municipalities will have less reason to thwart a policy measure they designed autonomously. While it is too early to judge the City Fund, it has already received fierce criticism, mainly because it seems to have diverted attention from urban poverty and social exclusion (de Decker and Loopmans, 2003; Loopmans, 2002; van Menxel, 2002). With its renewed emphasis on the economic development of cities and the attraction of high-income groups (to balance the loss by suburbanisation), attention on deprived neighbourhoods and poor people now mainly boils down to issues of social control (Uitermark, 2003; Loopmans, 2003b). In Brussels, the neighbourhood contract initiative began in six neighbourhoods in 1994 and has so far reached 27 neighbourhoods in total. In 1997, after a number of riots with inner city youngsters, the Brussels regional government decided that a swifter renovation of public space, provision of neighbourhood facilities and employment measures in some neighbourhoods were appropriate as a complement to the neighbourhood contract. Originally, these ‘Initiative Neighbourhood Programmes’ were meant to last for 18 months each. In 2001, the Initiative Neighbourhood approach was absorbed within the neighbourhood contracts as a means of simplifying collaboration between the Region and the municipalities involved. The 13 initiative neighbourhoods nonetheless functioned as inspiring experiments and generated new approaches, more specifically to the social component of the neighbourhood contracts. To strengthen the involvement of local actors, a Local Initiative Committee must be set up, composed of delegates from several official and non-official organisations plus inhabitants of the neighbourhood. However, the efficiency of this Committee depends on the goodwill of the municipality to integrate ‘the voice of the inhabitant’ and the dynamism of the Local Committee itself (Luyten and Kesteloot, 2003). As in Flanders, the Liberals won the 1999 elections and the overall policy in Brussels has also shifted towards the attraction of higher-income groups and business investments (Baeten, 2001a; Decroly et al., 2001).7 The Walloon approach had stayed relatively stable and unchanged throughout the 1990s, continuing the work with the instruments of the ZIP and the urban renewal subsidies (Noël et al., 2001). At the time of writing, the Walloon region is considering a reform of all positive discrimination measures but will probably continue the ZIP initiative.

7

The 2004 electoral victory of the socialists is expected to redress the balance.

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Since the end of the 1990s, Brussels, the main Flemish and, less obviously, the Walloon urban cores have all experienced renewed population growth, although this is mainly due to a stronger influx from abroad (e.g. Henau, 2002). The migration balance within suburban communities remains negative, but this is compensated for by foreign immigration and the regularisation of undocumented immigrants. Hence, suburbanisation is not being countered; on the contrary, this trend remains the dominant mode of urban growth today (Mérenne et al., 1997; Dubois, 2001). Nonetheless, a moderate gentrification process has been demonstrated, at least in Brussels and Antwerp. It has strong negative effects on the lives of poorer inner-city inhabitants, who are being displaced and experience increasing constraints in searching for new housing (van Criekingen, 2002; van Criekingen and Decroly, 2003; de Maesschalck and Loopmans, 2003). Apart from the Flemish policy changes, the most striking developments took place at the federal level. In 1999 the newly-installed government appointed a Federal Minister of Big Cities Policy,8 his task being ‘the improvement of the quality of life in cities’. The tasks set forward in the 2003 Government Agreement to reach this aim are fourfold, namely; i) a further concentration of the means for urban regeneration in a limited number of urban neighbourhoods; ii) improving safety; iii) addressing poverty and exclusion; and iv) offering affordable and good quality housing. Although the minister’s own means are limited because most crucial competences are in the hands of the Regions and the Communities, the Big Cities Policy is a task for the whole government and hence some striking legal measures have been taken, such as lowering of the tax on the transaction of houses in inner cities. However, the main instrument remains the minister’s own Big Cities Policy, inspired both by the ‘French politique de la ville’ and the European URBAN programme. The Big Cities Policy aims at a partnership with urban municipalities in order to realise a ‘sustainable and visible revitalisation of the urban environment and revaluation of public space’. As with the regional initiatives and the federal ‘security contracts’, local authorities enter into a result-oriented contract with the federal authorities and receive financial support for specific urban development projects. An annual update of the local plans is demanded, but from 2005 on, the project will only be evaluated on a three-year basis. The programme was initiated in 2000 and prolonged in 2003 under the new federal government. In 2003, the budget amounted to more than €40 million, spent on 152 projects in Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, Charleroi, and the seven Brussels municipalities qualifying under Structural Funds Objective 2: Anderlecht, Brussels, Vorst, Molenbeek, SintGillis, Sint-Joost and Schaarbeek. Since 2001, the four smaller cities of Seraing, La Louvière, Mons and Oostende have joined the programme (de Decker et al., 2002). The majority of the projects concern measures to promote ‘social cohesion’ (about one-third of all programmes). Another fifth of the projects aims 8

He was Government Commissioner the first year and became the Minister of Economy in charge of the Big Cities Policy in 2000.

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at safety enhancement in cities. A smaller amount of projects, but still about 20 per cent of the budget, goes to physical urban renewal. Economic development and employment projects, maintenance and management of public space and coordination are less important as far as the numbers of projects and financial means are concerned (Picqué, 2002). 5.4

The Ephemeral Impact of European Initiatives

The EU is more notorious than renowned for its impact on urban policies in Belgium. While the majority of its administrative functions are situated right in the heart of Belgium’s largest and capital city, it has never even had a policy towards its impact on the urban scene, resulting in one of Europe’s most scandalous examples of unplanned urban development (Baeten, 2001b; Swyngedouw and Baeten, 2001). This might be an explanation for the relative scarcity of traces left by the EU urban policies on national and regional urban policy schemes. Moreover, national and regional urban policy schemes are to a large extent influenced by political and managerial considerations operating at the federal and/or regional level (the case of Flemish urban policies’ battle against the extreme-right Vlaams Blok is a striking example in this respect) and attempts to connect with EU policies can be considered as mere ‘symbolism’ or ‘window dressing’ (receiving moderate airing on the occasion of the Belgian EU presidency, but then retreating into the background again). Nonetheless, Belgian, and more particular Flemish, urban policy history has witnessed two particular moments where EU examples have had some impact. Unsurprisingly, this occurred at moments when important discussions over the redefinition of urban policy were taking place, preparing significant policy shift at the regional level (Loopmans et al., 2003). This first happened with the European campaign for urban renewal in the early 1980s, which inspired the thenrevolutionary introduction of ‘social urban renewal’ in Flanders. A second phase of strong EU influence was seen when the first Flemish minister of urban policy was appointed in 1995. Facing the task of drawing up a completely new urban policy scheme, he found inspiration in the first URBAN pilot programme, which had generated a number of new policy concepts in Antwerp. Antwerp policymakers were able to play out these new ideas at the Flemish level because of the good impression left by the European experiment in Antwerp (Hobin, 1995). At the local level, influences of EU urban policies have apparently been more penetrating. Through URBAN and Objective 2 structural funds (30 per cent of Objective 2 funds in Belgium or about €130 million over the period of 2000–2006 were directed towards urban development), the municipalities involved are compelled to play the game ‘the EU way’. As such, Antwerp, Brussels and Liege took part in the first phase of the URBAN pilot programme. Several cities that are currently receiving Objective 2 money are URBAN II grantholders. Moreover, the Objective 1 funding for the heavily deindustrialised Hainaut province (with

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the urban regions of Mons, Charleroi and La Louvière) did have some impact on local urban policy formulation as well. The larger cities (in particular Antwerp and Brussels) are highly active in various European-wide learning and lobbying networks of cities (such as URBACT and Eurocities) focused on governance, urban development, picking ‘good practices’ from various cities (Loopmans, 2003b). 5.5

Urban Policies in Belgium: Multiple Initiatives at a Multitude of Scales, but with Variable Effects

Belgium can be considered one of the most urbanised countries of the world, with a dense network of small- and medium-sized cities and about 80 per cent of the population living in an urban region. Nonetheless, interest in urban policies only grew in the 1990s, after decades of ‘urban neglect’ at the national and regional levels. Several developments lie at the basis of this urban renaissance. Most influential has been the threat of political disturbances in inner cities; urban rioting and the spectacular rise of extreme-right voting in inner city areas threatened to disturb the balance of political forces up to the national level and spurred renewed interest in the deteriorating faith of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the inner city. Belgium’s particular federal structure has also had its impact. Regionalisation of most urban policy competences and regional differences in urban problems have led to a divergence of urban policy approaches in the three regions and at the federal level, with an emphasis on the physical environment dominant in Wallonia, on safety and poverty in Flanders and an in-between situation in Brussels. Local governance modernisation is a secondary goal of Flemish urban policies and federal policies have mainly focused on the broad area of crime prevention and more recently on economic development (using its fiscal competence). Overall, urban policy has merely reflected national and regional political considerations, even though Belgium’s largest cities – Brussels and Antwerp – are firmly inserted in international business and political networks and are considered the key poles of development for Belgium’s open economy. Even more surprisingly, while Brussels is hosting the main EU institutions, EU urban policy initiatives seem to have only marginal and indirect effects upon national and regional policy formulations. The Walloon urban policy initiatives had stayed remarkably consistent throughout the 1990s. Conversely, Brussels and certainly Flanders experienced significant policy shifts. In both regions, emphasis has recently drifted away from poverty reduction towards social control measures and the attraction of higherincome inhabitants and business investments by increasing the ‘quality of life’. At the federal level, urban policies have only recently begun to gain attention. All in all, making something out of urban policy is no easy task to perform for a municipality in Belgium. The fluctuation of new urban policy initiatives that

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have seen the light at the two tiers of supra-local government and at the EU level is hard to deal with. Increasingly, cities are required to tune various programmes developed from different viewpoints and with different requirements, making the puff pastry of Belgian urban policy sometimes hard to swallow. Some more harmony at higher levels of government would seriously reduce the workload of coordination. At the same time, however, this variety of approaches does provide local authorities with opportunities and a significant level of autonomy that some of them are able to turn to profit. Nonetheless, what has commonly been agreed upon as the core problem of Belgian cities (strong suburbanisation of high income groups and employment, as well as deteriorating living conditions for the inner city poor) has not been counteracted by the many ambitious urban policy initiatives that have seen the light during the past decade. References Ackaert, J. and Dekien, C. (1989), ‘Samenvoeging van gemeenten: verandering in de gemeentelijke organisatie en beleidsvoering’, unpublished research report, Leuven: KULeuven. Baert, H. and Fauconnier, E. (1995), ‘De doelbepaling en doelgroepkeuze in enkele VFIKgemeenten’, unpublished research report, Leuven: LUCAS. Baeten, G. (2001a), ‘Clichés of Urban Doom: The Dystopian Politics of Metaphors for the Unequal City – a View from Brussels’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 25, pp. 55–69. Baeten, G. (2001b), ‘The Europeanization of Brussels and the Urbanization of “Europe” – Hybridizing the City. Empowerment and Disempowerment in the EU District’, European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 117–30. Becker, I., Godard, M. and Roelandts, M. (1989), ‘Distribution spatiale des primes à la rénovation (1983-1988), premières réflexions sur la politique de rénovation urbaine à Bruxelles’, Revue Belge de Géographie, 3–4, pp. 175–91. Belgisch Staatsblad (1996), Decreet tot vaststelling van de regelen inzake de werking en de verdeling van het Sociaal Impuls Fonds, Brussel: Belgisch Staatsblad. Bijttebier, J., Butenaerts, H., Deschouwer, K., Elchardus, M., Gaus, H., Houttekier, G., Huyse, L., Neels, S., Swyngedouw, M. and Vanderkindere, M. (1992), 24 november 1991, de betekenis van een verkiezingsuitslag, Leuven: Kritak. Boudry, L., de Coninck, M., Fret, L., Geldof, D., Goossens, J., Notredame, L., Salmon, P., Seys, P., van Belleghem, S., Vandenberghe, J., Vandenbussche, J. and Ysebie, P. (1999), ‘Sociale, stedelijke en bestuurlijke ontwikkeling? Een tussentijdse SIF-balans, verslag van een rondetafelgesprek over de SIF-effecten 1997–1999’, Alert, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 21–48. Cabus, P. (2002), ‘Ruimtelijke verschuiving in de verdeling van het toekomstig gemeentefonds’, Ruimte en Planning, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 57–64. Cheshire, P.C. and Hay, D.G. (1989), Urban Problems in Western Europe: An Economic Analysis, London: Unwin Hyman. Colard, A. and Vandermotten, C. (1996), ‘La périurbanisation de l’emploi dans les zones métropolitaines belges’, Revue Belge de Géographie, Vol. 120, No. 1, pp. 33–40.

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De Brabander, G. (1998), ‘Belgium’, in van den Berg L., Braun, E. and van der Meer, J. (eds), National Urban Policies in the European Union, Aldershot: Ashgate. De Clerq, E., Guldentops, F., Kesteloot, C., Mistiaen, P., van Nieuwenhuyze, I. and Vranken, J. (2000), Comparative Analysis at National Metropolitan, Local and Neighbourhood Level: Belgium: Brussels and Antwerp, URBEX Series No. 2, Amsterdam: Amsterdam Study Centre for the Metropolitan Environment. Decroly, J.M., van Criekinghem, M. and Crahay, A. (2000), ‘Les consequences sociospatiales des politiques urbaines ‘entrepreneuriales’, Ruimte en Planning, Vol. 20, No. 1. Decroly, J.M., van Criekingen, M. and Crahay, A. (2001), ‘Les quartiers en crise face aux nouvelles politiques urbaines’, in Devuyst, D., Hens, L. and Impens, R. (eds) Neighbourhoods in Crisis and Sustainable Urban Development, Brussels: VUB University Press, pp. 39–62. De Coninck, M. and Vandenberghe, J. (1996), Het Sociaal Impulsfonds: een instrument voor het stedelijk beleid. Brussel: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap. De Decker, P. (1994), ‘Het herwaarderingsbesluit geherwaardeerd?’, Ruimtelijke planning, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 85–92. De Decker, P. (1999a), ‘De stadsmus raakt zelfs zijn bomen kwijt’, in Wiesbauer N. (ed.), Gazet van Babel. Een docudrama in 6 brieven en 5 seizoenen, Antwerpen: vzw de Kersentuin, pp. 39–46. De Decker, P. (1999b), ‘On the Genesis of an Urban Policy in Flanders, Belgium’, Netherlands Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 183–90. De Decker, P. and Loopmans, M. (2003), ‘Nieuw Vlaams stedenbeleid verergert de armoede’, Agora, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 27–30. De Decker, P., Hubeau, B. and Nieuwinckel, S. (1996), ‘Stedelijke vernieuwing: eindelijk de retoriek voorbij?’, in de Decker, P., Hubeau, B. and Nieuwinckel, S. (eds), In de ban van stad en wijk, Berchem: EPO. De Decker, P., van Nieuwenhuyze, I. and Vranken, J. (2004), ‘Urban Development Programmes in Flanders: Ghent and Antwerp. A Preliminary Assessment’, working paper for UGIS (Urban Development Programmes, Urban Governance, Social Inclusion and Sustainability) (EVK4–CT–1999–00012 UGIS), Leuven: Acco. De Decker, P., Vranken, J. and Beaumont, J. (2003), On the Origins of Urban Development Programme in Nine European Countries, Antwerpen: Garant (UGIS: Urban Development Programmes, Urban Governance, Social Inclusion and Sustainability). De Decker, P., Kesteloot C., De Maeschalck F. and Vranken, J. (2004), ‘Revitalising the City in an Anti-urban Context: Extreme Right and the Rise of Urban Policies in FlandersBelgium’, International Journal for Urban and Regional Studies (forthcoming). De Maesschalck, F. (2000), ‘Electorale geografie van het Vlaams Blok, de ruimtelijke evolutie van de verkiezingsuitslagen van 1981 tot en met 1995’, De Aardrijkskunde, Vol. 24, No. 1–2, pp. 21–36. De Maesschalck, F. and Loopmans, M. (2002), ‘Herverdeling van middelen en mensen’, Rooilijn, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 120–25. De Meulder, B., Schreurs, J., Cock, A. and Notteboom, B. (1999), ‘Patching up the Belgian Urban Landscape’, OASE, No. 52, pp. 78–112. Dexia (2003), De financiën van de locale overheden in 2002, Brussels: Dienst Research Dexia Bank.

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Dubois, O. (2001), ‘La construction résidentielle en Wallonie: analyse spatiale multiscalaire et logiques socio-économiques de localisation’, unpublished PhD thesis, Université Libre de Bruxelles. Elmhorn, C. (2001), Brussels: A Reflexive World City, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International. Henau, A. (2002), De recente demografie van het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest/la démographie récente de la région de Bruxelles-Capitale, Brussels: IRIS editions. Heughebaert, M. (1988), ‘Inspraak van bewoners in het nieuwe stadsontwikkelingsbesluit, toespraak op de studiedag stadsontwikkeling’, Congrespaleis Ghent, 23 September. Hobin, V. (1995), ‘Wijkontwikkeling: in de ban van de wijk’, in Vranken, J., Geldof, D. and van Menxel, G. (eds), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting, jaarboek 1995, Leuven: Acco. Kesteloot, C. (1990), De economische determinanten van de stedelijke structuren, Ruimtelijke Planning, Afl. 25, II.D.2.d., 42 p. Kesteloot, C. (2000), ‘Brussels: Postfordist Polarization in a Fordist Spatial Canvas’, in Marcuse, P. and van Kempen, R. (eds), Globalizing Cities: A New Urban Spatial Order?, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 186–210. Kesteloot, C. (2003), ‘Verstedelijking in Vlaanderen: problemen, kansen en uitdagingen voor het beleid in de 21e eeuw’, in Boudry, L., Cabus, P., Loeckx, A., Kesteloot, C., Corijn, E. and de Rynck, F. (eds), De eeuw van de stad: voorstudies, Brugge: Die Keure, pp. 15–39. Kesteloot, C. and de Maesschalck, F. (2001), ‘Anti-Urbanism in Flanders: The Political and Social Consequences of a Spatial Class Struggle Strategy’, Belgeo, Vol. 2, No. 1–2, pp. 41–62. Kesteloot, C., de Turck, A., Vandermotten, C., Marissal, P. and van Hamme, G. (2001), Structures sociales et quartiers en difficultés dans les régions urbains belges/sociale structuren en buurten in moeilijkheden in de Belgische stadsgewesten, Brussels: Ministerie voor Grootstedenbeleid. Kesteloot, C., Saey, P., de Maesschalck, F., Loopmans, M., Uitermark, J., Denayer, W., Mistiaen, P. and Guldentops, F. (2002), ‘Achtergestelde buurten, economische integratie en stedelijk beleid’, unpublished report, Leuven: KULeuven. Knops, G. (1981), ‘Stadsvernieuwing in België tussen het midden van de negentiende eeuw en 1953’, Ruimtelijke planning, 1981–1, pp. 1–18. Knops, G. and Vlaeminck, S. (1983), ‘Sociale stads- en dorpsvernieuwingsoperaties’, Ruimtelijke planning, afl. 6, II.A.1.e., pp. kno–kno19. Lievens, J., Brasseur, N. and Martens, A. (1975), De grote stad een geplande chaos?, Leuven: Davidsfonds. Loopmans, M. (2002), ‘From Hero to Zero. Armen en stedelijk beleid in Vlaanderen’, Ruimte en Planning, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 39–49. Loopmans, M. (2003a), ‘Het Stedenfonds: interview met Linda Boudry’, Ruimte en Planning, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 124–31. Loopmans, M. (2003b), ‘“Opsinjoren” in Antwerpen: een geavanceerde vorm van governance’, Agora, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 17-20. Loopmans, M. , Uitermark, J. and de Maesschalck, F. (2003), ‘Against All Odds: Poor People Jumping Scales and the Development of an Urban Policy in Flanders, Belgium’, Belgeo, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 243–58. Luyten, S. and Kesteloot, C. (2003), ‘The Brussels Case’, unpublished working paper for the seminar ‘Measuring Neighbourhood Trajectories in Understanding Processes of Social Exclusion’, October, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

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Merenne, B., van der Haegen, H. and van Hecke, E. (1997), ‘La Belgique, diversité territoriale’, Bulletin du crédit communal, 202, Bruxelles: Crédit Communal. Moriau, J. (1996), ‘Naar een duurzame ontwikkeling in de stedelijke prioritaire zones. Wijkontwikkeling in Wallonië’, in de Decker, P., Nieuwinckel, S. and Hubeau, B. (eds), In de ban van stad en wijk, Antwerpen: EPO, pp. 219–27. Moyart, L. (2000), ‘Croissance des services aux entreprises comme source de nouvelles inégalités spatiales: applications aux régions urbaines en Belgique’, Bulletin de la Société Géographique de Liège, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 41–52. Neirinckx, P. (1995), ‘Het Algemeen Verslag over de Armoede: betekenis en opvolging’, in Vranken, J., Geldof, D. and van Menxel, G. (eds), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting, jaarboek 1995, Leuven: Acco. Noël, F. (1998), La ville rapiécée. Les stratégies de la réhabilitation à Bruxelles, Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Noël, F. , Rodriguez, D. and Degraef, V. (2001), Les programmes d’action locale intégrée de revitalisation des quartiers: comparaison inter-régionale Bruxelles-Flandre-Wallonie, Bruxelles: Centre de Recherche Urbaine (Université Libre de Bruxelles). Peeters, L. (1996), Voor Steden en Mensen: beleidsbrief 1995, Brussel: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap. Picque, C. (2002), Evaluatierapport van het Federaal Grootstedenbeleid 2000–2002, Brussel: Federaal Grootstedenbeleid. Swyngedouw, E. and Baeten, G. (2001), ‘Scaling the City: The Political Economy of “Glocal” Development – Brussels’ Conundrum’, European Planning Studies, Vol. 9, No. 7, pp. 827–49. Swyngedouw, M. (1990), Verkiezingen in Antwerpen: Het Vlaams Blok, Islamitische minderheden en kansarmoede, pp. 401–29. Swyngedouw, M. (1998), ‘The Extreme Right in Belgium: Of a Non-existent Front National and an Omnipresent Vlaams Blok’, in Betz, H.-G. and Immerfall, S. (eds), The New Politics of the Right. Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, London, Macmillan Houndmills, pp. 59–75. Swyngedouw, M. (1992), Waar voor je waarden: de opkomst van het Vlaams Blok en Agalev in de jaren tachtig, Leuven: ISPO. UBS (2003), Prices and Earnings: A Comparison of Purchasing Power Around the Globe, Zurich: UBS. Uitermark, J. (2003), De sociale controle van achterstandswijken: een beleidsgenetisch perspectief, Nederlandse Geografische Studies 322, Utrecht/Amsterdam: Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap. Union des Villes et Communes de Wallonie (2002), Rapport d’activités, Bruxelles: UVCW. Van Criekingen, M. (2002), ‘Les Impacts sociaux de la rénovation urbaine à Bruxelles: analyse des migrations intra-urbains’, Belgeo, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 355–76. Van Criekingen, M. and Decroly, J.M. (2003), ‘Revisiting the Diversity of Gentrification: Neighbourhood Renewal Processes in Brussels and Montreal’, Urban Studies, Vol. 40, No. 12, pp. 2451–68. Vandenberghe, J. (1997), ‘Bestuurlijke dialoog in een verantwoordelijke samenleving’, Alert, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 43–47. Van Grembergen, P. (2001), Beleidsbrief binnenlandse aangelegenheden en stedenbeleid 2001–2002, Brussel: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap.

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Van Hove, E. and Nieuwinckel, S. (1996), Het Bomboek: het verhaal van de buurtontwikkelingsmaatschappij Noordoost-Antwerpen, Brussel: Koning Boudewijnstichting. Van Menxel, G. (2002), ‘Is er nog plaats voor armoedebestrijding in het lokaal sociaal beleid?’, in Vranken, J., de Boyser, K., Geldof, D. and van Menxel, G. (eds), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting, jaarboek 2002, Leuven: Acco, pp. 263–76. Vanneste, D., Cabus, P., Leemans, E. and de Rijck, T. (2003), ‘Ruimtelijke differentiatie van buitenlandse werkgelegenheid en territoriale dynamiek’, in Vanneste, D., Abraham, F., Cabus, P. and Sleuwaegen, L. (eds), Belgische werkgelegenheid in een mondialiserende economie, Ghent: Academia Press, pp. 89–211. Vlaams Parlement (2002), Plenaire vergadering, decreet tot vaststelling van de regels inzake werking en verdeling van het Vlaams Stedenfonds, vergadering van 4 december 2002, Brussels: Vlaams Parlement. Vlaamse Regering (1999), Regeerakkoord voor Vlaanderen: Een nieuw project voor Vlaanderen, Brussels: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap. Vlaamse Regering (2001a), Ontwerp van decreet houdende de ondersteuning van stadsvernieuwingsprojecten, Brussels: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap. Vranken, J. and Geldof, D. (1991), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting, jaarboek 1991, Leuven: Acco. Vranken, J. and Geldof, D. (1993), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting, jaarboek 1992–93, Leuven: Acco. Vranken, J., de Decker P. and van Nieuwenhuyze, I. (2001), ‘The Flemish (Belgian) Background Report’, working paper for UGIS (Urban Development Programmes, Urban Governance, Social Inclusion and Sustainability) (EVK4–CT–1999–00012 UGIS), Antwerp: OASeS. Vranken, J., Geldof, D. and van Menxel, G. (1995), Armoede en sociale uitsluiting, jaarboek 1995, Leuven: Acco.

Annex Table A5.1 Municipalities and agglomerations of over 100,000 inhabitants in 2003 Population in 1000s 1970 core Brussels Antwerpen Liège Ghent Charleroi Hasselt-Genk Mons Leuven Brugge Kortrijk Namur La Louvière Mechelen

1075136 549356 242983 255877 236813 117141 93902 86354 116868 77263 95771 78522 80351

1980 region

1675095 891375 649027 393325 413392 193948 237763 145932 154587 139639 118735 132018 107499

core 1008715 512806 220183 241695 221911 125951 96784 85632 118243 76424 100712 76892 77667

1990 region

1695704 899624 644452 395237 404385 215774 237719 154068 160533 143344 126869 130629 107144

core 964385 470349 196825 230543 206779 127437 91867 85193 117460 76081 103466 76138 75622

2003 region

1697633 896833 625334 389857 390293 226208 230462 162352 162943 144833 132163 129837 106419

core 992041 452474 184303 228016 200460 132128 91078 90406 116811 74340 105705 76592 76485

region 1787777 911293 624588 397910 385805 240981 226736 176324 165522 144222 138282 131229 109971

Chapter 6

Denmark’s National Urban Showcase: The Öresund Area Regional Development Christian Wichmann Matthiessen1

6.1

Introduction

Denmark is a small country of 43,098km2 with 5,349,212 inhabitants.2 With only one large city and three regional capital type cities, national policy for the large cities is not very explicit in light of the fact that the metropolitan area of Copenhagen houses 35 per cent of the national population. Any massive policy in favour of this clearly identifiable unit would create a minor revolution among the 65 per cent of the population which lives outside Copenhagen. Large city policy has mainly been formulated on the national level expressed in an obligatory national planning report that the Minister for the Environment submits to the parliament at intervals. The latest version was presented in 2003 (Miljøministeriet, 2003). Urban policy includes several fields of urban growth and development, and several ministries are responsible for different aspects. In the period 1998–2001 the government established a Ministry of Urban Affairs, which was active on a range of issues. The most important ministries before and after this intermezzo were and are the Ministry of the Environment (planning, spatial issues) and the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs (regional development, housing), but other ministries are active too, especially the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs. The Danish government is organised in a three-level hierarchy: national, regional and local government (Matthiessen, 1998). Outside Greater Copenhagen, the system of local and regional government was established in 1970 and consisted until 2001 of 225 large municipalities (towns with local hinterland) and 12 regions (regional centres with hinterland). Within the Greater Copenhagen Area the almost century-old pattern of administrative units is still partly in effect, with 50 municipalities and five regional units. An indirectly-elected council governed Greater Copenhagen in the period 1974–1989. The capital area was 1 2

University of Copenhagen. In 2001.

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without regional government in 1990–2000 and a new unit was established for the metropolitan area in 2001. This Greater Copenhagen Development Council receives its legitimacy from five county governments who finance the activities and select and instruct the council members. The council holds responsibility for public transport and for planning and coordinating issues. Another new type of regional/municipality government was set up in 2001 on the rather isolated Baltic Sea-island of Bornholm, which had previously consisted of one very small county divided into six municipalities, together counting 44,126 inhabitants. County and municipalities were amalgamated into one unit, which holds responsibility for both levels. Municipal governments cover all parts of Denmark and regional governments cover all municipalities. The rights and duties of the different local governments are almost equal,3 and the same applies to the regional level of government.4 The different levels of government are each financed by local, regional and national taxes. The responsible local, regional or national unit pays for expenditures. In addition there is a ‘downward’ flow of money from the national level to regional and local levels according to a set of rules and to political decisions. Of the total GNP, 50 per cent is privately used, 20 per cent is used on the national level, 10 per cent on the regional and 20 per cent on the municipal level. The spatial planning system is simple and decentralised. Municipalities are responsible for comprehensive municipal and local planning, counties are responsible for regional planning and the Minister for the Environment can influence this planning by directives, call in procedures and veto rights, but usually exercises national interests by negotiations. The planning process is controlled politically and public participation is an important part of the procedure. 6.2

Summary of the National Urban Policies until the Mid-1990s

The years around 1990 presented a shift in focus on the large cities from being looked upon as problematic concentrations to be perceived as decisive economic powerhouses in the global competition. Pre-1992 urban policy was linked to the construction and implementation of the welfare state. Spatial allocation principles should ensure an equal spatial development of the entire country. Irrespective of geography, the aims were to guarantee citizens living conditions of equal levels. This policy terminated in 1989–1992. The shift was a consequence of the fall of the Iron Curtain combined with the ongoing internationalisation of the economy, which in 1989–1991 expressed itself first and foremost through the establishment of the European Inner Market. The shift was quite sudden and was given very

3 Exceptions are the municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg, and the island of Bornholm, which combine municipal status with county status. 4 With the Greater Copenhagen Area as an exception.

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little attention, although it represented transformations from politics to economics, from welfare orientation to market orientation and from spatial equalisation policy to a focus on metropolitan competition. Post-1992 urban policy has mostly had its impact on infrastructure investment in favour of Greater Copenhagen, highlighting also a future metropolitan reality in the Öresund area realised by the coming of the Danish-Swedish bridge. In addition, renewed attention on the regional capitals was on the agenda and an increasinlgy European view on growth issues was promoted as marketing (demand) orientation and strategic planning was introduced during the late 1980s. Regional issues with the main goal of increasing the international competitiveness of the region or city in question have been added to traditional urban marketing. Although this chapter is about national urban policy, it must be mentioned that the decentralised government system implies that the regional level of government influences urban system policy much more than the national government does. It must also be mentioned that local government policies on taxation of land and income, service level and housing play important roles in urban policy in setting the local scenes. When it comes to housing, for example, the local mixture of owner/tenant/co-op homes reflects political priorities and thus indicates the business climate for the city in question. The spatial planning policies of the Danish government are mainly expressed in an obligatory national planning report submitted to parliament by the Minister for the Environment after each national election. National planning includes topics and projects in spatial planning that are considered of national significance. It comprises a framework and a supplement to the regional planning carried out by the counties and to the municipality and local planning carried out by the municipalities. With some exceptions, detailed management and detailed approval of regional or local planning are not the purposes as, for example, development in coastal areas and the maximum size of retail business units. In addition, national interest sometimes requires intervention in decisions that the local authorities cannot or will not make on the location of socially important projects. National planning can stop or change local projects that are inappropriate from an overall perspective. Specific trends can also be promoted. A committee of state civil servants assesses all regional plan proposals during the public comment period to determine the need for national involvment and the Ministry of Environment produces documents stating national interests in the regional planning. National authority can veto local plan proposals and, if no agreement is reached, the Minister for the Environment has the final decision. Urban system policy differs from region to region, although the nationally formulated terminology is in general use. In the mid-1990s five major cities (Copenhagen plus four provincial centres) constituted the upper level with a national government-defined weak status. Outside Copenhagen each of the 13 regional governments exercised their own policies and each gave the status of regional centre to a small number of cities, where the location and development of county activities (for example, hospitals) were favoured. The next planned level

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of the urban system was the municipal centre, where each municipality generally favoured one city. Although revised every fourth year, planning for the urban system has maintained the pattern as it was formulated in the 1970s when the initial planning laws were implemented. Concentration versus deconcentration on the regional level has been a subject of politics, but the overall picture is of a very stable urban system policy. In its policy, the government established a commission of ministers with the objective of finding solutions to problems in newer social housing areas. This high-level commission was named the Urban Commission and its remit was to initiate a common problem-solving effort on social problems, criminality in social housing areas and take actions to decrease concentrations of the social underclass, immigrants and refugees in certain quarters. Actions taken included lowering rents, renovating the residential areas, hiring consultants for the residents and starting up social activities. The results of the policy actions were evaluated in 1999 by the national Danish Building and Urban Research Institute (Statens Byggeforskningsinstitut, 1999) under the headings ‘neighbourhood strategy’ and ‘competitive strategy’. The two types of strategy reflected the contemporary shift in urban policy from welfare to growth. The main conclusion of the evaluation was that negative trends had been halted so that problems did not worsen and that some problems had been diminished, but none solved. The positive evaluation of the results of actions taken by the Urban Commission has proved to be too optimistic. 6.3

The State of the Cities

National urban policy is based on issues that are certainly recognised elsewhere in Europe: concentration in the highly accessible centres, especially Greater Copenhagen and the regional capitals; segregation processes within the larger cities; immigrant integration and rising problems between native population and immigrants from Third World countries; safety issues; network development and increasing international accessibility; decreasing densities in urban areas; urban sprawl (including recreation versus landscape conservation); regional disadvantages and periphery problems of sparsely populated areas with low accessibility; environmental problems, especially those associated with increasing use of automobiles. Sustainability is a key word and defines a society in which economic growth and development of the cultural landscape take place without threatening fundamental conditions for the coming generations. Another key aspect is the advancement of democratic processes and the balance of top-down and bottom-up political processes. Moreover, an important aspect is regional balance and cooperation between small towns and cities in growth regions. Finally, there is a growing interest in urban and regional marketing and strategic planning and the European perspective plays an increasingly important role. The post-bridge bi-national Öresund Area (Greater Copenhagen plus Greater Malmö-

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Lund) represents a new urban development regime of European attention and is presented later in this chapter. Denmark is a highly urbanised nation and no municipality can any longer be considered rural. Using the outdated United Nations definition5 of ‘urban’ 85 per cent of the population lived in urban areas in 2001. The balance between urban and rural population has been stable since 1980. Table 6.1 Urban and rural population 1960 Denmark 4,585,256 Urban areas 74% Rural districts 26%

1970

1980

1990

2001

4,937,579 80% 20%

5,123,989 84% 16%

5,135,409 85% 15%

5,349,212 85% 15%

The national urban pattern is dominated by Copenhagen, with a population in the core area that comprises 26 per cent of the national total (2001) and the Greater Copenhagen region, inclusive of the commuting hinterland, counts for 35 per cent of the Danish population. Copenhagen is the undisputed national leader and capital. Its position is secure, as the second city, Århus, counts only 5 per cent when core population is measured and 8 per cent when the ring area is included. Copenhagen is in the class of large European metropolitan units and urban competition with cities like Stockholm, Hamburg and Berlin is clear. The next level of cities comprises Århus (286,668 inhabitants in the core and 429,811 in the Greater Århus area), Odense (183,691 and 409,920) and Aalborg (161,661 and 357,774). These cities play roles as regional capitals for large areas of the country as does Copenhagen. The 1980 distribution of population in different sized groups of cities has been fairly stable and it is, rather, location within labour markets of urban units, which determines urban growth. From 1990 it has been cities within labour markets around the four largest towns that have grown more than average whereas cities within labour markets outside towns of at least 20,000 inhabitants have declined (Nielsen, 2003). Concentration reflects the use of advanced knowledge as a prominent factor of production and the subsequent demand for a labour force with higher education. The knowledge economy forces through a more concentrated geography than the industrial economy did. The emerging new urban system pattern is also influenced by global competition and by reductions in national protection of industries. During the last few decades the number of 5

The traditional United Nations concept of urban areas is strictly based on psychical features. An urban area is continuously built-up which means that the distance between houses does not exceed 200 meters, except owing to public parks, churchyards, athletic grounds, industrial plants, etc. The lower limit of population is 200 inhabitants.

Table 6.2 Population in large cities*

*

The total urban areas are delimited as labour market hinterlands since 1992 (Miljøministeriet, 2003). Core areas: Copenhagen comprises County of Copenhagen plus municipalities of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Allerød, Birkerød, Farum, Fredensborg-Humlebæk, Hørsholm, Karlebo, Greve and Solrød. This area forms the traditional urban area according to the United Nations definition. The three other core areas are the municipalities of Århus, Odense and Aalborg respectively. They are somewhat over-bounded compared to the core area of Copenhagen because of differences in municipal areas in Greater Copenhagen (small municipalities) and the rest of Denmark (large municipalities). Ring areas: Copenhagen comprises Greater Copenhagen Area plus municipalities of Ringsted, Haslev, Fakse, Rønnede and Stevns minus core area. Århus ring: Municipalities of Ebeltoft, Midtdjurs, Rønde, Rosenholm, Hadsten, Hinnerup, Hammel, Galten, Ry, Hørning, Skanderborg and Odder. Odense ring: County of Funen minus municipalities of Odense, Middelfart, Nørre Åby, Egebjerg, Gudme, Tranekær, Rudkøbing, Svendborg, Sydlangeland, Marstal and Ærøskøbing. Aalborg ring: Municipalities of Pandrup, Brønderslev, Dronninglund, Åbybro, Hals, Nibe, Støvring, Skørping and Sejlflod.

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commuters crossing an administrative boundary in particular has increased (1986: 947,219 or 35.6 per cent and 2000: 1,180,609 or 42.9 per cent) as has the average distance of commuting (1986: 18.3 million km and 2000; 25.8 million km). The labour regions have been enlarged, commuting to and from central urban units has been more balanced and local labour markets have increasingly opened up (Landsplanafdelingen, 2001). 6.4

National Urban Policies from the Mid-1990s: Urban Policy Reorientation at the Turn of the Century

In the late 1990s the focus on urban and regional development shifted to areas outside the Copenhagen region, since the city’s vibrant economy seemed to need little help. During the second part of the 1990s economic concentration was on major high-quality service centres with attractive environments of knowledge, research and development and with first-class locations in the dominant network of transport especially of air transport. This profile matches Copenhagen perfectly, and the city was – and is – a success. A reorientation of urban policy was launched around the turn of the century based on further analysis of the specialisation profiles of the cities (Miljø and Energi Ministeriet, 2000). Local strengths are historically anchored in the built environment, natural resources, the environment and the form of local knowledge and identity. The labour force varies regarding qualifications and the business structure is different from region to region. Each town was advised to strengthen its local role in cooperation with the rural surroundings, which must be looked upon as interactive suburbs closely related to the urban area – socially, culturally and economically – but which nevertheless also present their rural characteristics and environmental problems and potentials. Local growth potentials were to be enforced and clearly incorporated into the planning of municipalities and regions. Clusters of competence and advanced knowledge would be the new basis for differential development. The municipalities had to work out a strategy plan every fourth year following elections. Local clusters of competence and knowledge as the basis for development of growth strategies should also: point out relations to more regionally-based clusters; look at their position within networks of traffic and cooperation; discuss marketing of the urban unit; and relate to the European level. What was to be achieved with the reorientation of national urban and regional policy in 2000 was a closer relationship between public planning strategies and private business spanning from manufacturing to tourism. Also relations between ministries responsible for transport and infrastructure, economy and planning were to be improved. Sustainability on all levels would be the object. As an addition to the main objectives of the 2000 document on national spatial planning, two urban clusters were given the status of provincial centre, which they

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had been applying for for many years, indicating national attention for a location for upper level activities. The cluster of four cities (Herning, Ikast, Holstebro and Struer) in the mid-western are of Jutland – named Mid-West6 – and the cluster of three cities with neighbours in east Jutland-west Funen (Kolding, Vejle and Fredericia) – named the Triangle City7 – had already been mentioned in 1997 (Miljø og Energiministeriet, 1997) as candidates for this apparently attractive status carrying little national obligation. In 2000 the two clusters were given the official nomenclature and thus joined Copenhagen, Århus, Odense, Aalborg and the slightly smaller city of Esbjerg, which had had this status for decades. The discussion on defining an overall urban policy was initiated by the government urban commission 1993–1997 (Statens Byggeforskningsinstitut, 1999); a new Ministry of Urban Affairs was established in 1998. The ministry displayed its action plan in 1999 (By- og Boligministeriet, 1999), which undertook four aims. First, cities should be supported as centres for growth and development, urban growth should be coherent and the policy should diminsh inequalities. Second, the objective should be to create positive spirals in degraded quarters, development of attractive and sustainable cities with good conditions for business, with active participation, and research support should be established for these efforts. Third, the basics were considered to be coordination, cooperation and local basis. As the fourth field of policy, the government listed the instruments partly as a continuation of the Urban Commission actions (see above) with urban renewal and municipality planning, and partly developed new instruments on public–private partnerships, ‘flagship’ projects, urban governance and free zones. Shortly after the presentation of the action plan the government established another commission on urban policy. It presented its advice in 2001 and aimed at a new policy focused on diversity and sustainability (Erhvervs- og Bypolitisk Udvalg, 2001). The urban environment should be of high quality, a mixture of land uses is preferred, revitalisation of old urban districts should be given priority, accessibility should be improved, transport delimited and densities raised to prevent new zoning for urban purposes. The advice has yet to be implemented, but tools were provided in 2003 with a change of planning and urban renewal laws inclusive of national economic support to upgrading and changing problematic neighbourhoods and old industrial and harbour areas into contemporary use. The Minister of Urban Affairs published her statement on Urban Policy in 2001 (By- og Boligministeriet, 2001) based on laying down traditional sector policy in favour of comprehensive and integral policy. Urban policy aimed at two dimensions. One was residential area-based and comprised social policy of welfare improvement and problem solutions; the other was on growth issues. The 6

Formally, the Mid-West provincial centre consists of the four municipalities mentioned. 7 Formally, the Triangle City consists of eight municipalities: Kolding, Fredericia, Vejle, Børkop, Middelfart, Vamdrup, Lunderskov and Vejen.

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policies must be sustainable in respect of the environment, public participation is considered highly important, and the political actions must not further marginalise weak population groups. According to the urban policy formulated in a series of reports and statements related to the Ministry of Urban Affairs, a major field of action has been the neighbourhood improvement programmes. The objective was to address increasing social problems and the concentration of immigrants and refugees in a number of suburban social housing areas. The programme was launched in 1994 and around 500 social housing estates were given some kind of support. In 1996 the Urban Committee launched a new programme and selected seven major urban areas for improvement. The projects were based on coordinated and integrated efforts of different public sectors on different cooperating levels of government. They were also based on analysis of the neighbourhoods potentials, problems, and on participation and strength of local actors. It combined social actions inclusive of integration programmes with urban renewal and local economic change policy. The dimensions of culture and sustainability were also comprehended. The programme was allocated almost €200 million and was in 2003 evaluated by the national Danish Building and Urban Research Institute (By og Byg, 2003), which found that as a whole the efforts had succeeded in making changes that made the neighbourhoods more attractive and the residents more positive towards them. Mobility hadbeen reduced but no increasingly mixed composition of residents was visible. The Ministry of Urban Affairs only existed in the period 1998–2001. The most important ministries before and after this intermezzo were and are the Ministry of the Environment (planning, spatial issues) and the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs (regional development, housing), but other ministries are also active, especially the Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs. Based on the fact that growth in, for example, population, number of jobs and income is higher in regions with large urban units than in other regions, the Danish government published its annual document presenting intentions on urban and regional policy (Miljøministeriet, 2003). The central notion is, on balance but with clearly expressed ambitions, to strengthen growth differing from region to region. The report states that the nation consists of three different types of labour market regions: four regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the central city, 18 regions with between 20,000 and 100,000 inhabitants in the central urban unit, and 24 regions with smaller cities (see Figure 6.1). It is stated that growth in town and hinterland varies with the size of the largest city, and political effort is therefore directed towards growth in the regions without cities of considerable size. The report considers it important to think in large regional entities and to adopt flexible strategies in the planning of urban and regional growth, and it points out that flexibility should be an issue also between different administrative levels and sectors.

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Figure 6.1 Four large cities (urban area). Labour market regions indicated Source: Based on commuting data 1992, Landsplanafdelingen, 1994.

The growing number of immigrants and refugees presents a specific location pattern, which implies concentration in larger cities, often in the least attractive parts of these cities or in social housing areas. The actual visibility of ethnic minorities in specific parts of the cities is considered a political problem in need of a solution. So is the increasing social and ethnic polarisation, which in part reflects

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that it is only the strong groups (high income, surplus of social capital), which have the freedom of choice and can choose to leave unattractive quarters and select areas of urban and social quality. This kind of problem is given priority and a series of policy issues are discussed: for example, integration versus assimilation, participation in the labour market, strengthening of the immigrants’ social capital, and focused urban renewal. The contradictions between the goals of equalising and integration to human behaviour are demonstrated by an unwanted effect of urban renewal. Upgrading of residential quarters implies new polarisation for weak groups of people who by necessity concentrate in the shrinking residual of public or non-profit housing. Housing policy is an influential part of urban policy although it is often considered an independent political field. Recently there has clearly been a reduction in public financial engagement in the housing sector. Policy is in favour of private ownership, which implies privatising public housing and converting rented housing into co-ops or condos. The Municipality of Copenhagen has, for example, solved its budget deficit problems by selling the 55,000 municipallyowned apartments first and foremost to new co-ops of former residents. The government stated its policy on sustainable development in a publication signed by the prime minister (Regeringen, 2002). On urban policy, the government will promote the sustainable development of cities, homes and constructions. Residents and users must participate and the cities must provide conditions for further growth and present attractive locations for new business. They must be lively and diverse and must secure equal integration possibility for all members of Danish society. Old industrial and harbour areas will be transformed to provide attractive urban quarters for residents and industries. Accessibility issues should overrule mobility issues and collective transport should be favoured. In the residential market everyone should have a real choice between ownership and tenancy. Urban renewal should be given priority especially in social problematic areas. The actual Danish national planning report focuses on balanced development, but presents strong ties to another report released simultaneously on regional growth strategies (Regeringen, 2003). In the latter, the government presents its general ambition with regard to administrative efficiency and the creation of a business climate in favour of private sector demands as the main issues of regional policy. It is stated that regional competitiveness improvement is needed in order to secure future development and living conditions. In addition, the government wants all ministries to present the regional consequences of any laws and proposals as an integral part of the decision-making process. The objective of balanced regional development takes the aim of improving the general conditions of growth (Regeringen, 2003) and combines the general growth policy with improvement policy of peripheral regions. The government also raised the question of specific improvement of conditions for growth in the peripheral regions and has set aside a modest amount of financing (€8 million

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per year) for actions to improve these types of area, which are characterised by small cities. Between 2001 and 2003, a governmental commission worked on the structure of local and regional governments and new assignment of tasks. High expectations concerning advice on the number of administrative levels and on the number of units and their financing were presented in the actual debate. Expectations were partly based on the fact that the five municipalities in the smallest Danish region, the island of Bornholm had been combined with the regional authority to form one unit after a local referendum and that some other municipalities were in the same process, backed by local wishes. The governmental structural commission delivered its report in January 2004 and proposed several models, which were discussed until summer 2004, when the government took a decision on the number of administrative levels and size and number of municipalities and regional units. In summary, the state of the art when it comes to urban and regional policy focuses on regional entities and solutions to obtain the end goal of balanced development. The contrast between dynamics in the regions with large urban units and peripheral regions is deepening as competitiveness more and more is related to high and comprehensive levels of knowledge and education in combination with strong international accessibility. It is a political objective to strengthen regions without these qualities and at the same time support competitiveness in strong regions. Consequently the government wants to focus its own policy and to advocate that the region and cities themselves focus on their own growth potential. 6.5

What is the Impact of European Policies?

Danish towns are becoming increasingly dependent on international developments as international barriers for movements are breaking down. Cooperation across national borders is expanding. The geographical mobility of companies is enhanced, the exchange of goods and services increases and international competition becomes fiercer. As a consequence, it is expected that future international competition in Europe will be more between urban regions than between nations. Denmark is often considered to be a single region when observed from an international standpoint and regional differences in standards of living are certainly small. Denmark does, however, consist of different labour markets or urban regions, which in many ways are relatively independent of each other. The globalisation process leads to increased specialisation and division of labour among the urban regions. Each individual urban region will thus have its own unique role to play in the international division of labour determined by the strengths and weaknesses of the regions. The Örestadsplan of Copenhagen (initiated in 1993) is the first example of a comprehensive development plan for a new urban area subordinated to strategic

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objectives. The strategic objective was formulated as advancement of regional productivity in order to give Copenhagen a better platform in international competition with other metropoles. To that end, a large area of highly accessible open land close to both the city centre and Copenhagen Airport is in the process of being developed. Large investments in infrastructure, including a new metro rail system, are in progress and a mixture of metropolitan functions is in the construction phase or already in use. Denmark’s main transport structure (see Figure 6.2) includes two north–south and one east–west international axes for railroad and motorway. The east–west axis from Sweden via the Öresund Bridge crosses Sealand and, via the Storebelt Bridge, continues to Funen and further on to Jutland then across this peninsula to Esbjerg from where ferries connect to England. The eastern north–south corridor also connects via south Sweden to Greater Copenhagen and onwards to the Baltic Sea crossing ferries with Hamburg as the entry point to the German networks. Ferries from Norwegian harbours and from Gothenburg in Sweden link to the western transport corridor at harbours in the northern part of Jutland via Aalborg, Århus and the Triangle City – where this axis crosses the east–west corridor – and on to Germany at Flensburg and further on to Hamburg. The two major crossing points are the Triangle City and Greater Copenhagen, the latter also being the location of the major Danish airport, which is the largest and most important international airport in the Baltic Sea Area with traffic that includes around 20 intercontinental routes. Apart from ferry traffic no Danish harbours can be considered of European importance. The Ministry of Environment presented the perspective on the spatial structure of Denmark in the future Europe as a new item at the national planning level in 1994 (Ministry of the Environment, 1994). The new decisive angle was to focus strategically on the themes that are also in focus in the European Union. Denmark’s future urban system was presented in the publication. It will consist of many centres and it will be hierarchically based on one city of European significance, Greater Copenhagen or the Öresund Region, four cities with substantial international relations (Århus, Aalborg, Odense and Esbjerg) and numerous cities and towns with international specialties. The 1997 Noordwijk decision underscored the objective of cohesion and cooperation between different areas and centres, focused on sustainable development and natural and cultural heritage, and formulated the idea of balanced competitiveness between European cities and regions. The crucial objective is to create a polycentric system of cities with new urban-rural relations. Further concentration on the European centre (‘the blue banana’) should be counteracted and development should be more dispersed with the intention of establishing equal access to infrastructure and knowledge. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP: European Communities, 1999) was incorporated into the national planning institution with a series of hearings and analyses in the late 1990s. The issues of urban system, accessibility and natural and cultural heritage were discussed in the national planning report in 1997 (Miljø and Energiministeriet,

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Figure 6.2 Structural map with urban system indicators Source: Based on vision-maps presented by Miljø- og Energiministeriet (2000).

1997). Implementation took the form of new attention to international urban competition. Leaders of cities and regions discussed and formulated their position in a European perspective. Business clusters of international importance were identified and emphasised as focal points for improvement of infrastructure and framework for competition. European Union programmes and subsidies formed concrete foundations for activities. INTERREG programmes provided for initiating transnational cooperation in border zones first and foremost in the Öresund Area but also between border regions at the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. INTERREG IIIA and IIIB subsidies to Danish projects amounted

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to €48 million in 2001–2006 and new funds are constantly provided. Other funds (in particular structural funds) provided means for physical or functional projects as for example more than €200 million from the European Union for the Öresund Bridge. European Union subsidies to Denmark, which imply support to specific regions and towns, are summarised for 2000–2006 by MandagMorgen (2003). FIG comprises €205 million for fishing towns, Objective 2 directs €190 million to less favoured regions, INTERREG III sends €34 million to border regions, LEADER+ provides rural districts with €17 million for innovative activities and URBAN II gives small cities €5 million for working out sustainable strategies. The South Scandinavian scene has experienced dramatic changes of internal geography with the opening of the bridge in the year 2000 between Denmark and Sweden linking two concentrations of population and production by reducing the barrier of time and eliminating the land-sea bottleneck between them (the Danish capital region of Copenhagen with 1.9 million inhabitants and the Swedish urban region of Malmö Lund with 0.5 million inhabitants). The Öresund area is by far the largest concentration of activity of the Nordic countries; it is the primary cross point of Scandinavia and the most important gateway to the Baltic Sea Area. Development of a cross-border region in this area is favoured by European Union policy on elimination of barriers for trade and communication. The area is a model for European integration (see Figure 6.3). The Öresund Area is the first cross-border region to be analysed by the OECD (2003) in one of the organisation’s Territorial Development Reviews. The integration is considered as a slow and problematic project in progress. The national and international high profile of the strategy of integration in the area is a goal which must be obtained. In the analysis two matters are important: metropolitan competition and political governance. The report described potential increase in metropolitan competitiveness as a fact, as international investors direct their Nordic focus to the region, which is by far the largest concentration of people and activity in the Nordic countries. The researchers found that the Öresund Area was the Scandinavian cross point and the gateway to the Baltic Sea Area. They recommended that the cost for crossing the bridge is reduced by reduction in toll or by tax incentives, that differences in regulation and hindrances for shifts on the labour markets are eliminated, that social systems are equalised, and that asymmetric taxation systems are harmonised. OECD also recommends that some kind of improved cross-border organising capacity must be initiated with more democratic legitimacy and some lightweight authority. 6.6

Summary and Conclusions

National urban policy in the 1970s and 1980s focused on Denmark outside Greater Copenhagen. A shift in policy in favour of the Danish capital and only

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Figure 6.3 The Öresund area 2003. The map shows the area most engaged in the new regional development process metropolitan unit occurred in the beginning of the 1990s, when the focus changed from considering large cities as problematic concentrations, to perceive them as decisive economic powerhouses in the global competition. This policy has been active and dynamic until 2003, when a reorientation of policy in favour of what is named balanced development was introduced. Regions and cities are more and more parts of the globalisation process and their leaders focus increasingly on their strengths in the international competition in the context of commercial development. At the same time, international organisations and national governments stress the importance of regions and cities to realise sustainable strategies. Competitiveness and sustainability must interact in a new way as the superior success criteria for urban change. National urban policy recognises series of major urban problems concerned with the qualities of the urban environment. In 2003 the government promoted sustainable development of cities, homes and constructions. Residents and users must participate and the cities must provide conditions for further growth and present attractive locations for new business. Cities must be lively and diverse. Social and ethnic segregation processes and immigrant integration policies also

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play a role in urban politics, as do safety issues. Old industrial districts and harbour areas will be transformed to provide attractive urban quarters for residents and industries. The renewal and use intensification is, as always, problematic but must go hand-in-hand with restraints on the zoning of new land for urban growth. Changing the focus of transport planning from mobility to accessibility has been set in motion because of the negative impacts associated with increasing use of automobiles, and collective transport should be favoured. On the residential market everybody should have a real choice between ownership and tenancy. Urban renewal should be given priority, especially in socially problematic areas. Many problems call for integral solutions. Economic dynamics since the mid-1990s has been in favour of major highquality service centres with attractive environments of knowledge, research and development and with first-class locations in the dominant network of transport, especially of air transport. The strengthening of economic activity and the corresponding population growth in the large centres, especially in Greater Copenhagen, does have its contrast in fringe areas of small and medium-sized towns with a corresponding low level of activity due to limited development opportunities. The contrast between dynamics in the regions with large urban units and peripheral regions is increasing. It is a political objective to strengthen regions that lack dynamic qualities and at the same time support competitiveness in strong regions. The government wants to focus its own policy and to advocate that the region and cities themselves focus on their own growth potentials. The discussion on defining an overall urban policy was initiated by the Government Urban Commission in 1993–1997 and a new Ministry of Urban Affairs was established in 1998. The Ministry displayed its action plan in 1999, which was directed towards four fields of effort. First, cities should be supported as centres for growth and development, urban growth should be coherent and the policy should decrease inequalities. Second, the objectives should be to create positive spirals in degraded quarters, development of attractive and sustainable cities with good conditions for business, with active participation, and research support should be established to support these efforts. Third, the premises were considered to be coordination, cooperation and local basis. As the fourth field of policy, the government pointed out new instruments on public–private partnerships, ‘flagship’ projects, urban governance and free zones. Since it was presented in 1997 and adopted in 1999, the European Spatial Development Perspective has been of central importance for Danish attitudes and policies related to urban issues. Danish planning authorities have clearly adopted the philosophy of strengthening polycentric urban and regional development and ensuring balanced and sustainable development in the European Union. Each Danish city and region has its own competencies and growth potential. National urban policy aims to identify, support and develop these regional entities and solutions to obtain the goal of balanced and sustainable development and to create broad regional, national and international networks.

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The South Scandinavian scene has experienced dramatic changes of internal geography with the opening of the bridge between Denmark and Sweden in 2000, linking two concentrations of population and production. The Öresund Area is by far the largest concentration of activity in the Nordic countries; it is the major crossing point for Scandinavia and the most important gateway to the Baltic Sea area. Development of a cross-border region in this area is favoured by the combined forces of European Union policy on eliminating barriers for trade and communication and the reduction of the strong local barrier of distance. The area is a model for European integration. References By- og Boligministeriet (1999), Fremtidens by. Bypolitisk perspektiv- og handlingsplan. By- og Boligministeriet (2001), Betænkning fra Erhvervs- og Bypolitisk Udvalg, Betænkning nr. 1397. By- og Byg (2003), De syv første kvarterløft. Sammenfattende evaluering af udviklingen 1997–2002, Resultater 028. Ehlers, N. (2001), ‘The Utopia of the Binational City’, GeoJournal 54, pp. 21–32. Ehlers, N., Buursink, J. and Boekema, F. (2001), ‘Binational Cities and their Regions: From Diverging Cases to a Common Research Agenda’, GeoJournal 54, pp. 1–5. Erhvervs- og bypolitisk udvalg (2001), Betænkning fra Erhvervs- og Bypolitisk Udvalg, Betænkning nr. 1397. Erhvervsfremmestyrelsen (2001), Kompetenceklynger i dansk erhvervsliv – en ny brik i erhvervspolitikken. European Communities (1999), European Spatial Development Perspective, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Landsplanafdelingen (1994), ‘Pendlingen i Danmark’, Working Document. Landsplanafdelingen (2001), ‘Pendlingen i Danmark år 2000 og udviklingen i 1990erne’, Working Document. MandagMorgen (2003), Regeringen: Nej til EU-milliarder, MandagMorgen, vol. 31. Matthiessen, C.W. (1998), ‘Denmark’, in L. Van den Berg, E. Braun and J. van der Meer (eds), National Urban Policies in the European Union. Responses to Urban Issues in the Fifteen Member States, Aldershot: Ashgate. Miljøministeriet (1992), Danmarks byregioner. Miljøministeriet (2003), Et Danmark i balance. Hvad skal der gøres?, Landsplanredegørels. Miljø and Energiministeriet (1997), Danmark og Europæisk planpolitik, Landsplanredegørelse. Miljø and Energiministeriet (2000), Landsplanredegørelse 2000. Lokal identitet og nye udfordringer. Ministry of the Environment (1992), Denmark Towards the Year 2018. Ministry of the Environment (1994), Spatial Planning in Denmark. Nielsen, B. (2003), ‘Det danske bysystem 1960–2000’, Working Document. Copenhagen. OECD (2003), The Metropolitan Review of Öresund. Regeringen (2001), Regional Erhvervspolitisk Redegørelse, Reg21. Regeringen (2003), Den regionale vækststrategi.

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Statens Byggeforskningsinstitut (1999), Byudvalgets indsats 1993–98. Sammenfattende evaluering, SBI-rapport 32.

Annex Table A6.1 Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in core

Chapter 7

Finland: Towards Urban Innovation Policy Eero Holstila1

7.1

Introduction

After World War II Finland was a very agrarian country with only 26 per cent of the population living in urban communities. After 1950 the country experienced a rapid urbanisation which has continued up to now. However, according to Eurostat, Finland is still today one of the least urbanised countries in the EU. The Urban Structure of Finland According to the latest population statistics (2002), Finland has eight urban regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants. In total, these regions account for a little more than 2.5 million inhabitants, which makes almost half of the country’s population. The Helsinki Region is by far the largest urban region in Finland with 1.2 million inhabitants. It consists of 12 municipalities, among which the biggest are Helsinki (560,000 inhabitants) and its immediate neighbours Espoo (220,000) and Vantaa (180,000). The Helsinki Region is the economic and administrative centre of Finland. It contains one fifth of the population, one fourth of the employed persons, and one third of the GDP of the whole country. Especially during the latter part of the 1990s the economic performance of the city region was impressive. During the years 1995–2001 Helsinki was ranked number two among European cities in terms of dynamism of economic growth (Helsinki Urban Facts 2003). As Table 7.1 shows, major cities in Finland are growing rapidly. Particularly the regions of Helsinki, Oulu and Jyväskylä. Tampere and Kuopio have grown fast too, while Turku’s growth has been modest. During the late 1990s growth based on innovations and on knowledge industries was most rapid in Oulu and Tampere. All cities mentioned have actively cooperated with local universities and the business community. The population growth figures of cities dominated by traditional industries are modest or negative. Among the large cities, Lahti and Pori belong to this category, neither of which has a university.

1

Culminatum Ltd Oy, Helsinki Region Centre of Expertise.

Table 7.1 City regions of over 100,000 inhabitants in 2002

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Threat of Segregation Long-term unemployment, in particular, became a problem in big cities in the 1990s. Later on, the economic boom in cities was based mainly on ICT-related and high-tech industries. Unemployed people with low education could not be integrated in the new kind of working life. So the unemployment rate also remained high in dynamic cities like Oulu and Tampere. Local concentration of such unemployment in certain residential areas is now, for the first time, posing a threat of social segregation in Finnish society. Social differentiation has locally been very mild in Finland so far. In Helsinki, the situation has also changed because of the inflow of immigrants, another new phenomenon in the Finland of the 1990s. Since 1990, the number of immigrants has increased by some 500 per cent in Helsinki, where the proportion of foreigners, however, is not greater than 6 per cent even today. Unemployment is an especially severe problem among immigrants. Local Self-governing The basic unit of Finnish local administration is the municipality. Local selfgovernance of municipalities is granted by the Finnish constitution. Every four years, the local council is elected by the residents of each municipality. Finland is divided into 444 municipalities of various sizes. In terms of population the largest is the city of Helsinki, with more than 550,000 inhabitants. The smallest municipality has fewer than 200 people. According to Statistics Finland there are 40 functional urban regions in the country having urban centres with more than 25,000 inhabitants. The expenditure of local authorities makes up to two-thirds of all public expenditure in Finland because the scope of municipal activities is wider than in most other EU countries. The most important services provided by municipalities are education, children’s day care, social welfare, health care and maintenance of technical infrastructure. Urban Income Sources Finland’s strong local self-governance is derived from independent taxation rights. Municipalities finance nearly half of their costs with municipal tax revenue. In large cities, this proportion is even higher. Because tax revenue is dependent on the local economic activity, all the municipalities – and especially big cities – are active in the field of economic policy. The most important form of local tax is municipal income tax, the rate of which is determined annually by the municipal council. The rate varies from 16 to 20 per cent of the incomes of citizens, the variation being between 17.5 and 18.5 in large cities. Compared to income tax, the significance of real estate tax is marginal in Finland. But that is not the case with corporate tax. Municipalities receive a

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certain proportion of the corporate tax paid by companies. This proportion has decreased significantly during the last 10 years and is about 20 per cent in 2004. After a political debate, in 2003 the national government decided to maintain this system. The alternative would have been to replace corporate tax revenues with added government grants. Differences in tax revenue between the ‘richer’ and the ‘poorer’ municipalities are balanced by the system of government grants. Many small rural are extremely dependent on these grants, as are some urban municipalities. On the other hand, some large urban municipalities like Helsinki and Espoo have in recent years been contributing to those ‘poorer’ municipalities. Because of the complicated system these big cities have, so to speak, received negative grants from the government. Administration on the Regional Level In many fields, such as health care or education, it is usual for municipalities to cooperate with each other to provide services, for example, hospitals or schools. Joint municipal boards are formed to manage these services. There are 19 counties in Finland, in addition to the autonomous province of Åland. They are governed by regional councils, which are inter-municipal joint authorities. Regional councils bear statutory responsibility for regional development and planning. There are no regional elections in Finland. Members of regional councils are elected by the municipal councils. Funding for the regional councils comes from the government and from member municipalities. There is no regional taxation in Finland. During the last few years the role of regional councils has become stronger in regional development policy. From the beginning of 2003 a new legislation gave regional councils an enlarged mandate to coordinate regional policy action. Some cities have seen this as running the risk of decreased political influence. Finland is divided into six provinces, each having a Provincial State Office representing the government. Their significance to large cities like Helsinki has become minor after their responsibilities in the field of regional policy were shifted over to the regional councils in 1993. 7.2

Summary of the National Urban Policy Up Until the Mid-1990s

In the mid-1990s Finland experienced a deep economic recession. At the same time the national government chose investing in research and development as its priority. The most important task of urban policy was felt to be the strengthening of economic growth potential in cities. This thought is expressed in the title of a 1996 report of the national working group on urban development, ‘Cities as Generators of Growth’. According to the view expressed in the report, knowledge and innovations are the engines which generate new business enterprises and maintain the success of existing companies. The report maintained that conditions

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for innovation are particularly favourable in big cities and that favourable economic growth in these cities would have widespread regional effects. The most significant project of urban policy has been the Centre of Expertise Programme launched by the Ministry of the Interior in 1994. It was started in eight city regions, for example, in the regions of Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä and Kuopio. The objective of these programmes is to improve the local conditions enabling the location and development of internationally competitive knowledge-intensive business enterprises. At the city level, the most important cooperation organisations are the universities, research institutes, private firms, regional authorities and cities. The projects have been funded by ESF (European Social Fund). Urban policy became a matter of discussion during the years before Finland joined the EU in 1995. It became obvious that local activity and a state sectoral policy were no longer powerful enough to solve the new urban problems and to prevent new threats developing. New cooperation across the sectoral boundaries of the ministries and within the urban regions became necessary. The new concept of urban policy was welcomed by the government and by mayors of large cities as offering a framework for partnership-based actions. In all, national urban policy in Finland was still at a very early stage in the mid-1990s. 7.3

The State of the Cities

Background A period of economic growth in the 1980s had been based on extensive exports to the Soviet Union and on local demand, both isolated from international competition. The beginning of the 1990s saw a banking crisis and the collapse of many large companies in both the manufacturing and the service sectors. Finnish GNP decreased by more than 10 per cent during the years 1991–1993. The unemployment rate rose to more than 15 per cent, which led to a deep consciousness of crisis at all levels of Finnish society. The bad times gave the opportunity to all actors of the Finnish society to reshape strategies and make a new start, free from old restrictive structures. Productivity rose very rapidly in many industries. At the same time the national government – cutting budgets in the welfare sector – continued to invest in research and development: the large companies did the same. As a result, the share of R&D investment of GNP increased from 2 to over 3 per cent by the year 2000, thus reaching the target level of the EU for 2010. During the latter part of the 1990s, the economy of Finland grew by 4 per cent annually. This growth was based on expansion in the knowledge-intensive hightech sector. The share of the high-tech sector in Finnish exports increased from 6 to 23 per cent between 1990 and 2000. Information-related industries became a third pillar of the Finnish national economy along with the traditional sectors

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of metal industries and forestry. The ICT cluster, led by Nokia, managed to meet the challenges of the global information economy very successfully. It is possible that the shock of the deep recession forced the Finnish economy to adapt itself to the hard global competition better than many other EU countries. The analysis on challenges included in this chapter is based on the report by a working group for major city policy (Suomi tarvitsee suurkaupunkipolitikkaa, Finland needs a major city policy (Ministry of Interior, 2003). Challenge 1: The Role of Cities as Accelerators of Wealth ICT-driven growth of knowledge-based industries occurred mainly in three major city regions, namely Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu. The consequence was that service industries also started growing faster in these urban regions, where overall employment growth exceeded 20 per cent between 1994 and 2000. At the same time, migration to these city regions grew – at the expense of small cities and rural communities. The 1990s showed that university cities in Finland were capable of providing a good innovative environment for knowledge-intensive industries to grow and thereby for the whole national economy to prosper. At the same time, the significance of the big cities grew even more. Since 2001, however, the Nokia-led cluster’s growth has been slower, which has resulted in halted employment growth and in decreasing migration to major cities. In 2003, a working group for major city policy issued a memorandum estimating that in the future too the innovation potential of Finland’s biggest cities will remain a crucial driving force for the Finnish national economy. To compensate for Finland’s peripheral location, the main challenge of urban policy is to ensure that the Helsinki Region can go on evolving as a world-class innovation centre capable of attracting talented people from other parts of the world. Fostering the knowledge potential of Finland’s other university cities as well, is very important to Finland – not least in order to maintain regional balance. Challenge 2: Urbanisation, Housing Policy and a Sustainable Urban Structure About half of Finland’s population lives in eight major city regions. Urbanisation is still going on in Finland where, as Table 7.1 shows, the largest cities have grown very rapidly during the last few decades. According to population projections published by Statistics Finland, there will be 250,000 inhabitants more than today in the Helsinki Region by the year 2030. During the same period population growth will reach 30,000–60,000 in the urban regions of Tampere, Turku and Oulu each. These figures imply a huge challenge in providing housing for major Finnish cities today. Unfortunately – and for historical reasons – the housing standard (space per person) in Finnish cities is rather modest in European comparisons. The demand based on striving for a better housing standard has to be added to the

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Figure 7.1 The population growth in Helsinki region housing needs caused by migration flows. It was calculated that the annual number of dwellings to be constructed should be about 13,000 in the Helsinki Region only. The last decade saw annual completion of less than 10,000 dwellings in the region. The magnitude of the challenge is underlined by the fact that aggregate housing planned by the municipalities of the region is clearly below such numbers. This is due partly to the shortage of construction ground, partly to a will of the municipalities to limit population growth in order to be able to cope with the costs for building basic services like schools and kindergartens. Also, the rapid growth of cities raises a threat of urban sprawl. Finnish cities are sparsely constructed with population density only a quarter of European averages. For this reason, it is expensive and sometimes complicated to provide public transport coverage. Today Finland is facing the risk that additional construction in the future will make urban communities even more scattered. A recent OECD report noted the same thing (OECD Territorial Reviews, 2003) The importance of housing and living environment for attracting skilled labour is growing. Increasing mobility across national borders is putting the focus on living environment as a criterion for location. The dwelling stock in most Finnish cities predominantly consists of flats, for which reason a big challenge is going to be building detached, semi-detached and terraced houses at a larger scale. Challenges mentioned above imply that housing policy should be the main focus of Finnish urban policy in the future. As Michael Parkinson has pointed

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out, housing policy may become the most important element of urban policy in Europe. Urban housing policy might provide the missing link between competitiveness, social cohesion and sustainable urban structure (Parkinson, 1999). To date, however, housing policy has not been given high priority on the agenda of government in Finland, or even as a special issue in urban policy. Challenge 3: Social Inclusion The recession in the Finnish economy in the early 1990s implied great structural change that left many employees of the old manufacturing industries unemployed – often on a long-term basis. At the same time, Finland received a considerable number of refugees (Somali being the largest group) and ethnic Finns from nearby regions in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. A great proportion of these people have had problems integrating into Finnish working life owing to, for example, inadequate language skills. These factors – that is, unemployment and the lack of integration among immigrants – imply a threat of social exclusion in major cities. The end of the 1990s saw a considerable growth of income and wealth among those Finnish citizens who were involved in the boom of the ICT cluster. This led to increasing income differences in a country that had had the smallest income differences among OECD countries. In fact, in the big cities and in the Helsinki Region, especially, signs of looming social segregation may be seen (Vaattovaara and Kortteinen, 2003). By international standards, Finnish urban regions still have a balanced socioeconomic structure, and there have been no serious examples of accumulating deprivation. Yet in the late 1990s, the trend took a new course and social differences started to grow. This was partly explained by the fact that only part of the population benefited from the ICT boom. However, accumulation of deprivation in some blocks, sharpening ethnic conflicts and increasing criminality threaten to add a new ingredient to Finnish cities: the sort of social insecurity known to so many big cities in the world. Preventing this threat coming to pass is seen as the primary challenge for Finnish major city policy. According to the OECD territorial review on Helsinki (2003), there is a trend of growing income and employment disparities in the Greater Helsinki Region. Projected social outcomes based on the emerging socio-economic differences suggest that the city of Helsinki would end up with a disproportionately large share of the region’s poor and needy households. Espoo and some other western parts of the region would become progressively wealthier and more entrenched enclaves for the affluent high-paid workers in the knowledge economy (OECD, 2003).

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Challenge 4: Governance and Financing in Cities As briefly described in section 7.1, local administration in Finland is based on strong local autonomy. The municipalities play an important role particularly in the production of welfare services such as education, health care, children ‘sday care, income benefit, child protection and care for the elderly. To be able to perform their extensive duties, municipalities enjoy the right to levy tax among their inhabitants. The most important form of local tax is municipal income tax, the rate of which is determined annually by the municipal council. The rate varies between 15 and 20 per cent. In addition, municipalities receive a certain proportion of the corporate tax paid by companies. This proportion, on the size of which the state decides annually, has decreased significantly and is today less than 20 per cent. Municipalities receive real estate tax, too, but its significance is marginal. The deep recession in the early 1990s reduced corporate tax revenue to almost nothing. The strong city-generated economic growth that started in 1994 increased tax revenue in the big city regions of Finland very significantly. Oulu, in northern Finland, and Espoo (housing Nokia headquarters), in the Helsinki Region, benefited particularly from this growth. In 2001 the national government made significant changes in the criteria for allocating corporate tax revenue. In practice, they amounted to strong reductions in tax revenue for Helsinki and Espoo in particular. Matched with slowing economic growth this has implied budget cuts in the cities, cuts that according to the city leaders jeopardise their possibilities to respond to the challenges mentioned here. The cities have even seen these state decisions as a sort of negative major city policy that clearly has outweighted the state’s constructive urban policy measures. All the large city regions in Finland consist of the core city and several surrounding municipalities, but the future challenges of the cities do not obey municipal boundaries. Because of the strong tradition of local autonomy there is very little interests towards formal municipal mergers within city regions. According to most political leaders both at regional and national level, a stronger system of regional governance could be achieved through incentives and voluntary cooperation. It is not only a question of cooperation between municipalities, but also public private partnership and ‘triple helix’ with local universities will be important elements in improving models and practices of metropolitan organising capacity. 7.4

National Urban Policies from the Mid-1990s to 2003

The key idea of Finnish urban policy is that the task of the state is to ensure that cities themselves can solve their own problems and respond to challenges that they face. The best urban policy would thus be to increase the economic leeway of urban municipalities and consolidate their autonomy.

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On the other hand, the Finnish welfare state is based on a state-coordinated production of welfare services, where municipalities mainly play the role of implementers. However, the uniform policies for the whole country have not been able to respond to those new challenges of big cities described in Chapter 3, and this is one of the reasons why special urban policy measures are needed. Urban Programmes 1997–2000 For this purpose the Finnish national government, represented by the Ministry of the Interior, launched an urban programme policy in 1997. The purpose of the various urban programmes carried out between 1997 and 2000 was to encourage cooperation within urban regions and to give support to development measures based on the conditions of the cities themselves. The idea was to promote urban development that was economically, socially and ecologically sustainable. The main emphasis, however, lay on the vitality and competitiveness of urban regions. The urban programmes were chosen on the basis of two open application rounds, during which a total of 27 programmes were selected for programme financing. The most important criteria were innovation, regional cooperation, wide-scope partnership and a cross-sector approach. In terms of their goals, the urban programmes implemented between 1997 and 2000 can be divided into four main groups: 1) promotion of expertise and internationalisation (10 programmes); 2) urban environment, urban structure, housing and traffic (nine programmes); 3) social well-being in cities and city culture (five programmes); and 4) interaction between the urban and the rural (three programmes). Technology- and information-based programmes aimed at stimulating the vitality of cities formed the largest group, although at the same time there was a centre of expertise programme going on including almost all university cities. In the years 1997, 1998 and 1999 various ministries, mainly the Ministry of the Interior, provided around €2 million for urban programmes. The share of urban regions themselves was at least 50 per cent – and often more than that. And in many cases the projects received finance also from various EU programmes and other state finance channels. In all, ministry finance for the first generation of urban programmes could best be characterised as seed funding. The first generation of urban programmes was evaluated by the School of Public Management of Tampere University. The assessment says that the lack of a clear vision and well-defined goals of urban policy was a problem. For this reason the programmes had included large unspecified and partly unrealistic projects. Insufficient funds often caused projects that initially had started off well to end prematurely. Another problem was that cooperation between sectors faltered. On the other hand, the assessment also pointed out that the urban programme policy had given urban policy in general a boost. The programmes had clearly had catalytic effects on strategic fields of urban regions. They had given many

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urban regions a new arena for cooperation in the interest of the region’s competitiveness. Regional Centre Programme (2001–2006) In 2000, the national working group on urban policy appointed by the Finnish government suggested that a new and more efficient urban programme policy should be set up. The government decided to launch a new programme, but gave up the concept of urban policy and called the programme the Regional Centre Programme. At the same time, the Helsinki Region was excluded from the programme due to Helsinki’s special challenges. The Regional Centre Programme is an integral part of the national regional policy for balanced and polycentric regional development. The continuation of the programme was confirmed by the new government in 2003. National regional policy bases its objectives and actions on the distinctive qualities of the regions and on the recognition of their individual strengths. The aim is to develop cities of different sizes into strong regional or local centres. The authority responsible for the national coordination of the programme is the Ministry of the Interior. The programme is based on partnership and cooperation between various ministries, government bodies responsible for regional administration, regional councils and municipalities. In 2003 the programme was being implemented in 34 regions. On the basis of an agreement between municipalities, responsibility for the programme lies with the urban centres or the joint regional organisations of the municipalities, such as regional business development companies. Funding of the programme by the Ministry of the Interior amounted to €17.3 million during the years 2001–2003. The Regional Centre Programmes can be seen as the next step after the period 1997–2000 in the implementation of urban policy. The same criteria have been applied on the choice of projects. A crucial principle of the programme is to see urban regions as functional entities, for the development of which the core city and the peripheral municipalities must cooperate closely. The last few years have seen much debate in Finland on the need for a municipal reform: should the number of municipalities (450 at the time of writing) be made closer to the number of functional regions (around 90). The Regional Centre Programme contributes to implementing the government’s strategy, which aims at increased voluntary cooperation between municipalities within functional urban regions. The Regional Centre Programme is one of the government’s most important tools for regional policy. It includes practically all the urban regions except the Helsinki Region and the smallest cities. The regions included house 63 per cent of all Finns. Knowing that the Helsinki region has 22 per cent of the country’s population, practically the whole of Finland (85 per cent of inhabitants) is covered by ‘urban’ policy. Therefore, the question has been asked whether the Regional Centre Programme can still be called urban policy.

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Figure 7.2 Regional centre programmes An evaluation by NetEffect Ltd of the Regional Centre Programme was published in 2004, which maintained that the programme has been successful in catalysing partners within city regions to cooperate in order to improve the competitiveness of the region. On the other hand, the evaluators reported serious problems concerning the involvement of the ministries in the implementation of the programme. Continuation of the Centre of Expertise Programme in 1999–2006 The Centre of Expertise (CoE) Programme is a special policy tool aiming to take advantage of international top level knowledge and excellence as a resource for prosperous business enterprise and regional development. The programme was launched in 1994 in eight cities, including all the large urban regions in Finland.

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The programmes were implemented by local development companies that usually were organised according to the Triple Helix model (with the university, the city and business enterprises as co-owners). Referring to the good experiences that the programme gave, the national government has twice (in 1998 and 2002) decided to extend the programme to new regions and fields so that by the end of 2006, no less than 22 centres of expertise operating in 45 branches will be included. The programmes are carried out within regions in cooperation with the local business community, the city, university science parks, research institutes and other public administrations. It is essential that the partners involved commit themselves and their actions to the goals formulated in the programme. The responsibility for the management of the centres of expertise is often assumed by the local science and technology park company. The projects included in the programmes are born from the specific needs of the business community and innovation system of each urban region. A crucial point is to increase and consolidate cooperation between companies and research institutes, that is, to make local research, education and enterprise meet and cooperate closely. This way local innovation is developed while growth potential for companies is created and start-up enterprises are born. The Centre of Expertise (CoE) Programme is based on competition. Only the best local programmes have been awarded the centre of expertise status. The centres of expertise have to compete for basic state funds annually. In 2003, the Ministry’s basic funds for centre of expertise programmes amounted to €8 million. A condition for receiving the state’s basic funding is that local actors also invest in the programme. The cities are the most important local providers of finance. They have often invested in the science parks and the infrastructure of technology centres too. The profile of the CoE programme is to be an organising tool for the city regions, not a funding instrument. In this respect the programme was successful. For example in 2003 the total funding of the CoE projects amounted to about €40 million coming from various sources like the EU, private companies and national innovation organisations. The policy of the national government which came power in spring 2003 has been to continue the centre of expertise programmes and consolidate them. A special goal is to improve the knowledge and technology basis of mediumsized city regions. The national government seems to have adopted a two-tier strategy: it backs the spread of centres of expertise to all parts of the country and at the same time stresses the role of big cities as innovation centres of world class. From the angle of major city policy it is essential that the government intends to upgrade cooperation between the centres of expertise in the biggest cities. The goal is to make these urban regions even more inviting in order to attract more international talents to study, teach, research and do business in Finnish regions. According to the national evaluation published in 2002, the Centre of Expertise Programme has been a success story of the new regional policy based on the

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regions’ own strengths. With modest public financing an effective mobilisation of private resources has been achieved in most of the city regions involved. From the beginning of 1994, the way of managing and coordinating the programme on the national level has been based on the Triple Helix model, that is, on partnership between universities, business sector and public administration. From the beginning the chairman of the coordination group has been Professor Yrjö Neuvo, Senior Vice President of Nokia Corporation. The 2002–2004 Urban Programme of the Helsinki Region When in 2000 the Finnish government decided to launch the Regional Centre Programme, it also decided that Helsinki Region be excluded from it. Furthermore, it decided that a special policy for the Helsinki Region was needed to improve its international appeal and capacities. When the mayors of the four central municipalities – Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen (together forming the Helsinki Metropolitan Area) – discovered that the new urban programme policy had omitted Helsinki Region, they decided to draw up an initiative for a common urban policy. Representatives of the four cities were included in the formulation, as well as a large group of stakeholders from universities, the business community and civic organisations. During this work in 2001, a thorough inventory of the challenges facing Helsinki Region in the future was made. Discussions between stakeholders identified those challenges in particular that called for partnership-based (between private and public actors) urban policy measures across sectors and administrative borders. Figure 7.3 maps these challenges. The main priorities formulated by the mayors in their urban policy initiative included the strengthening of the region’s international competitiveness and the safeguarding of social cohesion within the region. A third priority included in the proposal was the theme ‘A learning metropolitan region’, which was also felt to combine the other two priorities headlined ‘Strengthening of high-tech competence and multidimensional knowledge base’ and ‘Increasing social inclusion’. The housing challenge caused by rapid population growth was left outside this new urban policy programme, because simultaneously a joint project between the government’s ministerial group and the mayors of the Helsinki Region was working on a ‘document for cooperation’. This resolution completed in 2001 aims at increased housing production in the Helsinki Region, and it is clearly a part of the national urban policy. In 2002, the mayors launched an urban policy initiative ’A competent and cohesive city – urban policy programme for Helsinki metropolitan area 2002–2004’. The programme consists of the three priorities mentioned above divided into 18 pilot projects to be implemented jointly by cities, government authorities and the third sector. After the adoption of the mayors’ initiative, the implementation of the programme was supported and partly funded by the Ministry of the Interior. Governmental seed funding for this programme does not

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Figure 7.3 Urban policy programme for the Helsinki region exceed €1 million during the period 2002–2004. The key idea of the Ministry is to catalyse local funding based on good experiences from the Centre of Expertise Programme. Urban Policy Prospects for the Helsinki Region In a programme declaration, the government in power since summer 2003 announced that it would adopt a policy that aims at social and regional balance and that reduces regional differences in opportunities to develop. The government thus continues the programmes already in process, among which the most important are the Regional Centre Programme and the Centre of Expertise Programme. A new emphasis is to extend the effects of these programmes so that the regions surrounding regional centres get their fair share of development and that centres of expertise are born in all parts of the country. According to the government programme, urban policy is applied to safeguard the competitiveness of urban regions and the opportunities for socially balanced development. The urban network is developed comprehensively whilst heeding the needs of urban regions of various sizes. Mutually supportive cooperation between urban and rural policy is increased. Cooperation procedures between the municipalities of the Helsinki Region and the state are developed further. In 2003, the government appointed a commission for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area affairs, including representatives of relevant

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ministries, the mayors of the four municipalities of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and leaders of the regional councils of Uusimaa and Itä-Uusimaa. The role of this commission chaired by the minister responsible for regional policy is advisory discussing urban policy challenges facing the region. In 2004 an investigator appointed by the government made proposals on how to develop the governance of the Helsinki Region. According to the proposal, a government for the Helsinki Region should be established inside the Uusimaa Regional Council. The government would consists of regional council members representing the Helsinki Region. It was also proposed that the regional councils of Uusimaa and East Uusimaa should be merged. In order to create outlines for ‘national metropolitan policy’ a new commission should be appointed by the government. The commission would consist of five key ministers and the same number of high-level political leaders representing the Helsinki region. The Role of Local Authorities and Cities in Finnish National Urban Policy In 1997, the Finnish government set up an urban policy work group, with representatives from various ministries, research institutes, enterprises and cities. This broad-based work group, which functioned until the end of 2002, included representatives of the big cities of Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Oulu plus a number of smaller cities and the regional councils. This is an example of how the principle of partnering between state and municipalities has been applied to the preparation of urban policy. The Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for urban policy at the national level, mobilised the expertise of cities, for example, in the development of urban indicators and general outlines for major city policy. In both of these sectors representatives of the cities have carried the main responsibility during the preparation work. The role of Helsinki City Urban Facts, for example, has been crucial. Preparation work has been carried out in an atmosphere of good cooperation between the experts of the ministries and the cities. But the cities have been less pleased with the contents of the urban policy. The mayors of the big cities have found the funds allocated totally insufficient and criticised the focus of this urban policy which, since 2000 especially, has amounted to moderating the trend of centralised urbanisation and to supporting small and medium-sized urban regions. According to the mayors, the big cities have had to solve their challenges and problems on their own. This is the case for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, in particular, from which the state cut a major part of corporate tax revenue and gave it to other parts of the country instead. Matched with slower economic growth in the last few years, this ‘negative urban policy’ forced the cities of Helsinki and Espoo to make budget cuts in 2003 and 2004. In 2001, the mayors of the six biggest cities in Finland – Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Tampere, Turku and Oulu – began intensified cooperation to make the state also focus on major city policy. A working group by the name of ‘SixPack’

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has produced information on the importance of these big cities for the national economy, emphasising especially that over half of the Finnish GNP is generated in these urban regions. The mayors have endeavoured to influence the policy outlines of the national government – but not very successfully. They have intensified their cooperation also in the framework of the Eurocities organisation and have made the Centre of Expertise Programme – the flagship of Finnish urban policy – known within the EU. The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, too, has of late become more active in urban policy lobbying in ministries. In 2003, the association set up an urban policy work group including the mayors of the 15 biggest cities in Finland. 7.5

Impact of European Policies

Impact of EU Policies/Subsidies on Cities in Finland In Finland, the declared aim of policies relying on the EU’s structural fund programmes has not been to help develop cities. Some minor URBAN funds have been exceptions. The situation has, rather, been the opposite: political argumentation has mostly concerned the development of less developed areas. Regional programmes have primarily been initiated and coordinated by the Regional Councils. This, of course, influences the argumentation: regional programmes are supposed to promote the whole region. The development strategies of the programmes are strongly focused on strengthening the conditions for business enterprise, particularly so in the knowledge-intensive industries. Thus the central actors of structural funds have often been found in the cities – even when the goal has been to promote the whole region. The evaluators of the Objective 6 programmes point at the fact that internal differentiation in the province had been going on during the implementation of the programme. Yet the interests of the core city and those of the rest of the region or the Regional Council may diverge clearly. One example of this is the Pohjois-Savo region, where a considerable part of large development projects have been born around the University of Kuopio, and where the peripheral areas have demanded a fairer allocation of funds within the region. In this dispute, the Regional Council has been the spokesman of the smaller municipalities. We must notice that in Finland those regions that enjoy the first level of support include only a few middle-sized cities, among which Kuopio is the biggest. The Objective 2 programme and the horizontal Objective 3 have, to a considerable extent, been implemented in terms of projects in cities – however, without setting up any goals – except the URBAN measures taken within the framework of the Objective 2 programme.

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Impact of European Policies on National Urban Policy-making The EU policy of the government of Finland has had no significant direct effects on Finnish urban policy. In Finland no such urban policy has been applied that would have been based directly on EU outlines. The exception would be the URBAN programmes, which have probably been more influential than their financial dimension would suggest while implanting a project-based working model in the promotion of social well-being in housing estates. The urban policy outlines of the EU have, nevertheless, had indirect effects in Finland: they have provided useful references for analysing various phenomena in urban development. Many Finnish analyses have applied the classification found in EU documents of knowledge-based competitiveness, social cohesion and sustainable environmental development. Polycentrism, a familiar principle on the EU agenda, has been welcomed in Finland, because it has provided justification for the implementation of, for example, the Regional Centre Programme. 7.6

Summary and Conclusions

To be able to understand Finnish urban policy, we need to recognise certain special features of the country. For one thing, urbanisation started relatively late in Finland, in fact only after World War II, and it is still in progress. Throughout the twentieth century, an emphasised national goal was to keep the geographically large country evenly populated. Finnish cities on average have a very young building stock, and no slum developments have been seen even in the largest cities. Secondly, municipal autonomy is exceptionally strong in Finland. The fact that municipalities have the right to levy tax, that is, between 15 and 20 per cent of people’s personal income, makes municipalities – and cities especially – considerable economic actors. In this sense, Finnish municipalities are probably stronger than municipalities anywhere else in Europe. On the other hand, Regional Councils have no rights to levy tax, and in line with this, the members of Regional Councils are elected by the municipalities. So, municipalities are strong politically, too. Thirdly, Finland is a centrally governed welfare state where all cities and municipalities obey the same laws and procedures. Balanced regional development has been one of the main concerns of all the governments during the last decades. Against this background it is understandable that the national government did not put much emphasis on urban policy. On the other hand, there has been no great need for urban policy either, since problems in cities have not differed very much from problems in the country at large, and since cities have been able to solve their own problems financially.

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In the 1990s, however, this picture changed. The deep recession in the Finnish economy in the early years of the decade crumbled the old basis of manufacturing and brought mass unemployment to many big cities. The idea of ‘cities as engines of growth’ became a guiding principle in urban policy. Combined with consistent technology policy by the national government, the Centre of Expertise Programme launched in 1994 has turned out to be a success. In the latter half of the 1990s, the major city regions of Finland (Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu especially) experienced strong growth in the knowledge-intensive industries, which brought an employment growth of over 20 per cent in these cities. The big cities became winners in the new global economy and pulled the rest of the Finnish national economy into a rate of growth nearly unmatched in the EU. It is paradoxical that this success story was to contribute to a reorientation of urban policy in the early 2000s. In 2000, the national government launched a Regional Centre Programme, the main goal of which was to achieve a polycentric urban structure. With the programme, the state sought to encourage, above all, common strategic work among various actors in urban regions, and to promote key projects that mostly aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of the local business community. In 2003, the Regional Centre Programme included 34 urban regions, that is, almost all Finnish cities. Yet, the funds that the programme receives from the Ministry of the Interior are minor, eight million euros in 2003, so its effects threaten to become minor, too, especially in larger urban regions. The regional policy orientation of the Regional Centre Programme is clearly shown by the fact that the overwhelmingly largest urban region, the Helsinki Region, has been left out. Yet in 2002, the Ministry of the Interior included into its funding the urban policy programme Competence and Cohesion, which concerns the years 2002 to 2004. In 2004, the national government appointed a Helsinki Region Commission led by the Minister of Regional Development. The commission is going to deal with urban policy challenges and measures in the Helsinki Region. Furthermore, the ministry appointed an investigator to make suggestions for how to develop administrations in the Helsinki Region. The Centre of Expertise Programme – the flagship of Finnish urban policy – is going to be extended at least up until the end of 2006. The programme has been broadened and covers more than 20 urban regions today, and its goals, too, have been revised in the name of regional policy so as to give better support to a polycentric urban development. In Finland, EU structural funding has been used for supporting nation-wide regional policy, where urban policy has played a minor role. The Objective 1 area includes only one urban region with more than 100,000 inhabitants, that is, Kuopio, where EU funding has played an important role in the construction of the local technology centre. Objective 2 funding has been used in the cities of Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä and Pori, for example. In the Helsinki Region, one URBAN project is underway. The 1998 urban policy document of the EU has been of great importance to the formulation of the contents of urban policy in Finland.

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In all, urban policy in Finland is still in its early stages. There is no comprehensive urban agenda adopted by the government but urban policy actions are constituted of a series of minor programmes. The main focus of these programmes may not be on city development but on promoting polycentric and balanced regional development. From a European perspective the profile of Finnish urban policy could be described as ‘opportunity oriented’, focusing on science and innovations in cities as the engine of competitiveness. In this sense the results have been impressive. City regions like Oulu, Tampere and Helsinki have been motors of the national economy for the last 10 years. According to several international indicators Helsinki is one of the most dynamic city regions in Europe (European Competitiveness Index, 2004). References Castells, M. and Himanen, P. (2002), The Information Society and the Welfare State. the Finnish Model, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Helsinki Urban Facts (2003), The Regional Economy of Helsinki from an International Perspective. Ministry of Interior (2003), Suomi tarvitsee suurkaupunkipolitiikkaa [Major City policy needed in Finland]. OECD (2003), OECD Territorial Reviews, Helsinki, Finland. Parkinson, M. (1999), ‘The European Commission and European Cities – Towards a New Urban Policy?’, Helsinki Quarterly, 2. Robert Huggins Associates (2004), European Competitiveness Index. Vaattovaara, M. and Kortteinen, M. (2003), ‘Beyond Polarisation versus Professionalisation? A Case Study of the Development of the Helsinki Region, Finland’, Urban Studies, 40 (11), pp. 2127–45. Van der Meer, A., van Winden, W. and Woets, P. (eds) (2003), ICT Clusters in European Cities during the 1990s: Development Patterns and Policy Lessons, Rotterdam: EURICUR.

Chapter 8

France: Metropolitan Areas as New ‘Reference Territories’ for Public Policies Christian Lefèvre1

8.1

Introduction

In France, 75.4 per cent of the population lived in urban areas in 19992 (last national census) which means a relative stability since the previous 1990 census and only a 5 per cent increase since 1968. In 1999, according to the new statistical definition (see box below), there were 354 ‘urban areas’ (aires urbaines) ranging from 12,000 to about 11 million inhabitants. Urban Areas, Urban Poles, Suburban Rings and Urban Units In 1997, the National Institute of Statistics (INSEE) established new statistical units to better measure the evolution of French cities. Four new concepts were created: urban area (aire urbaine), urban pole (pole urbain), suburban ring (couronne péri-urbaine) and urban unit (unité urbaine). An urban unit is a community of 2,000 living units or more based on urban continuity (no more than 200m between buildings). An urban pole is an urban unit which groups 5,000 jobs or more. Municipalities sending 40 per cent or more of their work force to the urban pole compose the suburban ring. An urban area is the combination of an urban pole and a suburban ring. The 1999 population census reveals a growing trend towards the concentration of people in large cities. In fact, 50 per cent of the population growth in the nineties has taken place in 11 urban areas representing only 34 per cent of the total population. To the exception of Lille, they are the first 11 urban areas in 1

University of Paris VIII. The overseas areas (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, Réunion) are not included in these data. 2

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the population hierarchy (see Table 8.1). Generally speaking, population growth means urban sprawl: today 176,000km2 are occupied by urban areas compared to 132,000 in 1990. Urban population concerns 13,908 municipalities compared to 10,687 a decade earlier (INSEE, 2001). 8.2

National Urban Patterns

Fourteen urban areas dominate the national territory. Among these urban areas, four are have 1 million inhabitants (Paris-Ile de France, Lille, Lyon and Marseilles), 10 over 500,000 (Toulouse, Nice, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg, Toulon, DouaiLens, Rennes, Rouen and Grenoble) and 38 over 150,000 inhabitants. Table 8.1 Population of the 14 largest urban areas in France in 1999 Urban areas Paris-Ile de France Lyon Marseilles-Aix en Provence Lille Toulouse Nice Bordeaux Nantes Strasbourg Toulon Douai-Lens Rennes Rouen Grenoble

Population (in 000) 11,175 1,648 1,516 1,143 964 933 925 711 612 565 553 521 518 514

Source: INSEE.

These data illustrate the well known fact that the Ile-de-France area is by far the largest urban area and largely distances the second cities of Lyon and Marseilles. According to the recent DATAR comparative analysis3 (DATAR, 2002), while Paris is in class 1 with London (world cities), Lyon, Marseilles and Toulouse are only in class 4 (large cities of European importance) with 12 other 3

The DATAR study compares the 180 largest urban areas (over 200,000 inhabitants) of Europe. Ranking was established from a very complex set of 15 criteria including population, evolution of population (1950–90), airport traffic, European accessibility, number of headquarters, banking activities, number of students, research centres, etc.

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European urban areas and the seven following French cities in class 5 (large areas with European potential). France has no cities in class 2 (major European areas) or class 3 (European metropolises) which contrasts with Germany, Italy and Spain. The over-domination of the Paris area is not only in demographic terms. Paris contains ‘only’ 18.6 per cent of the national population, but 21.4 per cent of the labour force, 39 per cent of the foreign population, 21.9 per cent of employment, 29 per cent of the GNP, 33 per cent of the national income revenue, has 25 per cent of the student population and 45 per cent of researchers (IAURIF, 2001). In comparison with the previous decade, the over-domination of Paris has been growing (the central city of Paris has even gained population in the 1990 decade) which indicates a failure of most national policies directing towards reduction of the gap between Paris and other large cities. This exceptional situation explains why the Ile-de-France area has always been treated separately by the state in relation to national public policies and decentralisation processes. The 13 other large cities show nevertheless demographic dynamics with the exception of Lille. This demographic dynamic is largely due to their dynamics in terms of economic and cultural influence. Most of them are regional capitals and have benefited from the national policy of ‘métropoles d’équilibre’ of the 1960s and 1970s which gave them significant equipment and infrastructure. Some of them like Lille or Lyon have developed efficient strategies at the European and international levels to compensate for their poor competitive situation with respect to the capital. Some of them like Toulouse and Rennes are very dynamic economic poles meanwhile others such as Douai-Lens and Saint Etienne have gone through a serious economic crisis and are continuing their population decline, notably Saint Etienne (321,000 inhabitants in 1999) which lost more than 21,000 inhabitants between 1990 and 1999. Administrative and Financial Framework There are four levels of government in France. At the top is the state, then the 26 regions, the 100 départements and about 36,700 municipalities. All these governmental tiers are guaranteed by the national constitution, the region being the last following its inclusion in 2002. There is no hierarchy between subnational levels, in contrast for instance with federal countries or regional states like Italy and Spain. This is important to note because the question of hierarchy between different levels is gaining momentum today. Because France is a unitary state, every government tier of the same level is organised in the same way. For instance, the Paris municipality is governed with the same legal framework as any other small town. The same is true for départements and regions. The French administrative system follows the so-called Napoleonic model according to which the territorial division of the state apparatus matches the local government structure. Thus there is a regional division of the state headed by a Regional Prefect, there is a départemental division of the state headed by a

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Prefect and the Mayor is at the same time the head of the municipality and the representative of the state at the municipal level. The municipalities are the oldest government tiers. Their origin goes back at least to the French Revolution (because they correspond more or less to the parishes of the Ancien Régime). Most of them are small (70 per cent have fewer than 700 inhabitants while only 2.3 per cent have more than 10,000: 36 municipalities have more than 100,000 inhabitants). They are managed by a council led by a Mayor elected by the council. The mandate of the council is six years, as is that of the Mayor. The départements have been established in 1789. They are administered by a council elected for six years which appoints a President from among the councillors. The regions are the most recent tier: although they were created in 1982 but really came into power as democratic governmental unit only in 1986, after the first regional elections. They are directed by a regional council elected for a six-year mandate which appoints a President. There is a second assembly, the Regional Economic and Social Council, which represents the civil society and which has only a consultative role. The Decentralisation Acts of 1982 and 1983 transferred state responsibilities to the three subnational tiers according to the principle of the ‘block of competences’, that is, each level was to be exclusively responsible for specific allocated functions. Municipalities received responsibilities for land use, public transport and lowerlevel education.4 Départements are responsible for social affairs and regions were given the competence for economic development, professional training, culture and rail transport. In practice, the ‘block of competences’ principle has never functioned and instead has left the floor open to an ‘intertwining of competences’, each tier getting involved in the competence of the other. The state has more or less transferred corresponding personnel and financial resources, although this remains a conflictual issue between the state and local governments. Generally speaking every level of local government has its own fiscal resources. In addition, they receive grants from the state. The majority of local government revenues comes from their own taxes as it is shown in Table 8.2. State transfers come from the Decentralisation block grant scheme. The DGF (Dotation Globale de Fonctionnement) is the main subsidy. It is concerned with current expenses. The DGF amounts to about €19 billion in 2003 (DGCL, 2003). The DGE (Dotation Globale d’Equipement) is reserved for investments for small municipalities and amounts to €0.9 billion in 2003. The DGD (Dotation Globale de Décentralisation) acts as compensation for the functions transferred to municipalities by the Decentralisation Acts. In 2003, it amounted to €6.1 billion.

4

state.

Very partially, since the educational system remains largely in the hands of the

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Table 8.2 Structure of local revenues in 1999 (%)

Own tax revenues State transfers Other local resources Loans Total

Municipalities

Départements

Regions

52 29 12 7 100

63 21 12 4 100

49 44 3 4 100

Source: Dexia, 2002

In addition to this political and administrative framework, two essential elements regarding the management of urban areas must be mentioned. First, the multi-holding mandate system (cumul des mandats), through which a politician may hold several local and national elected positions (for example, being Mayor, member of the département and/or regional councils, or even deputy in the National Assembly or Euro-Deputy). In addition to these, (s)he may also hold nominated positions such as minister (except for the deputies). This is common practice and almost an obligation for those who wish to have a political career. Although the cumul des mandats has been severely criticised over the last decade and as a consequence has been restricted by law (it is no longer possible to hold more than two local elected mandates), this system is still very much in use because it is a way to control a functional territory through the control of the executives of the various local governments covering it. This is even more the case when a mayor of a central city is at the same time the President of the various joint authorities of the urban area and of the many semi-public bodies to which his or her city belongs. The second essential element is the so-called ‘intermunicipal’ system. Traditionally, area-wide management has been addressed through intercommunal structures: joint authorities gathering several municipalities and sometimes départements. At the end of the 1990s, there were about 20,000 of them, which makes them significant government bodies at the urban area level. Such structures are public bodies, a form of quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation), having responsibility for more and more policy sectors. In the largest urban areas, they take care of public transport, planning, environment, waste management, sewer systems, economic development, culture and so on. They are today completely controlled by local governments. Although they are grouped under the same heading – Etablissements Publics de Coopération Intercommunale ( EPCI) – they are of various sorts and various names: communautés urbaines, communautés d’agglomération, communautés de communes, syndicats de communes, and so on, depending on their statutory responsibilities and the population size of their jurisdictions. In the last decade, the nature of

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these structures has evolved significantly. While their responsibilities used to be mainly focused on the management of infrastructures and public services (directly, through mixed economy bodies, or by contracting out to private firms), they are now more and more involved in strategic issues such as strategic planning, economic development, social issues such as social cohesion and environment. The ‘intermunicipal’ system will be analysed in depth in the fifth section of this report because it is in this domain that the most important and relevant changes in urban area administration have occurred in the last few years. Table 8.3 Evolution of main inter-municipal structures: 1972–2000 1972 Communautés urbaines 9 Communautés d’agglomération Communautés de communes Districts 95 SIVU 9,289 SIVOM 1,243 Syndicats mixtes Total 10,636 *

1988

1992

1996

9

9

9

153 11,967 2,076

214 14,596 2,478

14,205

17,297

894 318 14,614 2,221 1,216 19,272

2000 12 50 1,493 281 14,885 * 2,165 * 1,454 * 20,340

in 1999

Source: DGCL.

8.3

Summary of the National Urban Policies Until the Mid-1990s

Up to the mid-1990s, national urban policies have to be understood within the paradigm of the Paris–province debate. In that paradigm, national policies were conceived to reduce the economic importance of Paris in relation to other French urban areas, and notably the largest ones. In the 1960s, the state launched the ‘métropoles d’équilibre’ policy, aiming at developing eight regional capitals (more or less the largest urban areas). It did so by investing largely in infrastructure and equipment (highways, high-speed trains, airports, public transport, etc.) in order to attract firms and jobs. It also started a policy of ‘délocalisation’, that is moving jobs of the national public sector away from Paris to regional capitals. This policy did not work out well since it did not prevent Paris and its area from continuing to grow and attract firms, jobs and people. At the same time, the state continued to develop Paris because it was the capital of France: it thus developed the public transport system, the airports, the highway network, created ‘La Defense’ (one of the largest urban redevelopment areas of Europe)

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and invested significantly in cultural infrastructure with the so-called ‘Grands Chantiers du Président’ (the President’s Great Public Works) such as the National Library of France, the renovation of the Louvre, the Bastille Opera, etc. Thus the state’s attitude towards Paris has been ambiguous. Economic development and urban competitiveness were not decisive priorities of the state in that period, at least not in its urban dimension.5 The focus was on social problems, notably after the first urban riots of the 1980s. Gradually the state has intervened in urban areas with several policies: first the so-called Developpement Social des Quartiers (DSQ) (Social Development of Neighbourhoods) Policy in the mid-1980s, then the Loi d’orientation pour la Ville (LOV) (Urban Area Policy Act) in 1991 and finally the Pacte de relance pour la Ville (A New Pact for Urban areas) in 1996. These policies established various programs and instruments to solve the ‘Urban Question’, such as the Grands Projets Urbains (GPU) (Large Urban Projects), the Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) (Sensible Urban Zones) and the Zones Franches Urbaines (tax free areas with specific fiscal measures to attract jobs in distressed neighbourhoods). To implement these policies the state signed urban contracts (contrats de ville) with local governments which were agreements aiming at the funding of urgent actions over a five year period in the most deprived municipalities (all together, 214 contracts were signed between 1993 and 1998 and concerned more than 1,200 deprived areas) (Jacquier, 2001). To elaborate these policies, the state constituted a political, administrative and technical apparatus: a National Interministerial Agency for the City, the DIV (Délégation Interministérielle à la Ville) in 1988, a Ministry for Cities in 1990 and created specific national funds for cities such as the Urban Solidarity Fund (FSU). By and large these policies were not a success. They were accused of being piecemeal, badly integrated and overall insufficient in their financial contribution, which was severely criticised in a widely diffused and discussed national report ‘Tomorrow the City’ (called the Sueur Report) in 1998.6 In fact, the national urban policies of the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that the state was no longer capable of taking urban problems in charge. It was no longer able to elaborate and implement policies alone. Gradually, the system of actors has started to open up to the private sector and to the civil society. This opening up started in fact in a few large urban areas like Lille and Nantes which

5 However, several important measures to foster economic growth were taken in the domain of economic and fiscal policies but they were not focused on urban areas. 6 The ‘Sueur Report’, ‘Demain la Ville’, written by the mayor of Orleans, National Deputy and President of the Association of French largest urban areas, Jean Pierre Sueur, notably called for a long-term, stable and larger funding programme for cities (at least double what the state gave at that time), making urban areas a national priority for the new socialist government. It was not implemented.

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were pioneers in that domain, although this opening up was modest and cannot be compared by all means to the British situation in the same period. The Conservative government which came into power in 1995 was not really urban oriented. This is clearly illustrated by the 1995 Act on the Planning and Sustainable Development of the Territory (Loi d’Orientation sur l’Aménagement et le Développement Durable du Territoire – LOADDT). Elaborated by the Ministry of Interior, the politically most powerful ministry of that government, the LOADDT focused on the national territory, considering that the major problem of France was the desertifying of rural areas. As such, it proposes various instruments to remedy this problem. It was severely criticised by urban interests concentrated in the Association of the Mayors of the Largest French Cities (Association des Maires des Grandes Villes de France – AMGVF), saying that urban areas were the ‘forgotten territories’ of the Law and that urban problems were the most important national problems, which was clearly stated in their slogan: ‘Mon Pays c’est la Ville’ (My Country is the City). Nevertheless, this government approved an important law regarding urban transport and the environment which came out after many amendments: the LAURE (Loi sur l’Air et l’Utilisation Rationnelle de l’Energie – Air and Rational Use of Energy Act) which importance for urban areas is the obligation for large cities to elaborate and implement a Plan de Déplacements Urbains – PDU (Urban Travel Plans). A PDU must give priority to public transport and soft modes to take care of people’ mobility. By the end of 2002 about 50 PDU had been approved (GART, 2002). The Conservative government lost power in 1997 and was replaced by a greensocialist-communist coalition (until 2002) whose supports came principally from urban voters and urban interests. National policies since then have been much more in favour of urban areas as we will see in the next sections. 8.4

The State of the Cities

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, French urban areas continue to be plagued by serious economic and social problems. In the economic sector, the 1990s confirmed the ‘de-industrialisation’ of most French cities. For instance, the Ile-de-France lost about 400,000 industrial jobs between 1985 and 2000 (IAURIF, 2001). This has had a double impact. First, on the spatial side, de-industrialisation has left significant brown-fields areas which need to be regenerated. Second, local unemployment has increased, the local population having problems finding jobs because of the mismatch between the qualification required and what the local population could offer. As a result, social conditions have been worsening. Social polarisation has increased in cities with many deprived areas becoming more deprived. Between 1990 and 1999, unemployment increased by 25 per cent in the 750 ZUS (INSEE Première, 2002) which had a population of 4.7 million. This situation has been

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so serious that it has become one of the top priorities of every government, be it progressive or conservative. In political terms, this issue has been approached as that of social cohesion, that is the capacity of society and cities to maintain a sort of social pacific co-existence in their territories. Urban violence and urban safety has been the most significant issue of the last national elections in 2002 and has remained a top priority for the population and its representatives, at the national and local levels, although no clear comprehensive data can be given.7 Other, more ‘classical’ problems continue to haunt French cities, namely mobility problems and environment degradation. Social and economic polarisation, along with urban sprawl, have led to a situation where people live further and further from their jobs. Commuting distances have therefore significantly increased, although commuting times have not grown in a similar way due to the development of transport infrastructure. Light rail and heavy rail systems have been built and extended in most major French cities like Grenoble, Rennes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Rouen, Lyon and Paris, and highway construction has been pursued. However, traffic congestion is significantly increasing, at least in its spatial (the congestion area is growing) and temporal (the time period of congestion is spreading over the day) forms, due to the mismatch between public transport networks configuration and mobility patterns which makes the automobile the even more important transport mode in urban areas (see Table 8.3 below). Table 8.4 Importance of automobiles in some of the largest urban areas (per cent mechanised modes) (various years between 1985–2002) Bordeaux 1990 1998

Grenoble

79 1992 84 2002

Lille

74 1987 83 1998

Lyon 82 1985 86 1998

Marseilles 74 1988 77 1997

Paris

77 1991 81 1998

66 68

Source: CERTU, 2003.

In the most recent years, the various policies and policy-making structures aimed at solving the ‘urban question’ have been strongly criticised by researchers (Donzelot and Estebe, 1994; Behar and Méjean, 2001), but most importantly by policy-makers and elected officials. In 1998, the Sueur Report, ‘Demain la Ville’ (Tomorrow the City), as we saw, denounced the inconsistency of the Policy for Cities. It was soon followed by other reports like the Cavallier Report (1998) on the same lines. The criticisms addressed the territorial irrelevance of these policies

7

There is a large debate regarding the official figures given by the Ministry of Interior, although they show a constant increase over the years.

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which focus mainly on neighbourhoods and municipalities instead of considering the urban area as a whole; the policy inconsistency was also severely denounced on the ground that it was sectorially based instead of issue oriented, in spite of the political rhetoric. The multiplicity of procedures and programmes was also blamed because it contributed to the fragmentation of public action and negatively stigmatised the concerned areas, notwithstanding the fact that it added to the already significant administrative complexity. Also criticised were the insufficiency and the instability of funding for such programmes on the ground that social cohesion was a long term problem and consequently a long-term target which needed a strong and stable commitment from the state. 8.5

Current National Urban Policies

After almost two decades of decentralisation, the state has launched some interesting initiatives in the governance of urban areas and in policy-making, with the support of several local government associations like the AMGVF (Association des Maires des Grandes Villes de France, Association of Mayors of the Largest French Cities). Three national Acts have been approved in 1999 and 2000 which establish a new framework for dealing with urban issues: The ‘Chevènement Act’ which addresses the institutional question, the ‘Voynet Act’ which addresses the policy-making process and the ‘SRU Act’ which addresses the planning process and some specific content of policies. 8.5.1 The Renewal of the Juridical, Institutional and Financial Framework The Institutional Question: The 1999 Chevènement Act8 Considering that urban areas were not administered by relevant joint authorities (territorial discrepancies between the functional and the administrative territories, financial and fiscal inadequacies, responsibilities inconsistency of the existing inter-municipal structures) and that the present institutional system was far too complex to be understood by citizens, the Chevènement Act has introduced several significant changes to address these issues. First it has established three new types of joint authority which will gradually replace the present complex system: the communautés de communes for areas under 50,000 inhabitants, the communautés d’agglomération for urban areas of over 50,000 people and the communautés urbaines for urban areas of more than 500,000 inhabitants. As mentioned above, urban areas refer to the new statistical functional definition of the National Institute for Statistics (INSEE), thus indicating that

8

The exact appellation of the Chevènement Act is ‘Enhancement and Simplification of Inter-municipal Cooperation’ (Loi sur le renforcement et la simplification de la coopération intercommunale), Chevènement being the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs at that time.

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France is composed of about 140 urban areas of more than 50,000 inhabitants. These new joint authorities, whose territories should match the functional urban areas, have statutory powers in the following fields: economic, cultural and social development, territorial planning, social housing, urban policies for deprived areas, environment preservation, public networks (such as public transport), etc. The communauté urbaine has more statutory powers than the communauté d’agglomération. These newly established joint authorities are governed by a board which comprises the representatives of all member municipalities, generally on a population basis. Second, the Act has established an area-wide business tax in order to eliminate the competition between municipalities to attract firms. The business tax is the most important local tax. It is levied on firms located in the municipal territory. The lower the tax, the more attractive the municipality for enterprises. As a consequence, municipalities which are rich enough (because of their residents’ wealth or because they can already levy significant revenues) can offer low business tax rates and attract more firms, while the poorest ones may have to maintain higher business tax rates to levy enough revenues and thus may lose firms. In the last decade, this situation has constantly been denounced by some national associations of municipalities like the AMGVF and central government bodies like the DATAR. To reduce this phenomenon, that is, to favour territorial solidarity, the Chevènement Act established an area-wide business tax (Taxe Professionnelle Unique or TPU) which is to be levied by the new joint authorities. This area wide business tax represents the whole of the municipal business taxes (i.e. it replaces all municipal business taxes) and is to be used for area-wide purposes or for projects jointly decided by the joint authorities. In addition, in order to facilitate or to speed up the establishment of joint authorities, the state has increased the amount of the block grant (DGF) it allocates to newly created joint authorities which agree to set up an area-wide business tax. The Voynet Act The Chevènement Act is supplemented by the Voynet Act9 (Ministry of Environment and Regional Planning) which also replaces the 1995 LOADDT. The new Act addresses the question of the process of policymaking and the content of policies at the area-wide level. The interpretative slogan of the Voynet Act is ‘a territory, a project, a contract’. For cities, the territory is the statistical urban area, the project is an agglomeration project and the contract is an agglomeration contract. The Voynet Act aims at giving the joint authorities established by the Chevènement Act the capacity to achieve

9

The juridical name of the Voynet Act is ‘General Act on Regional Planning and the Sustainal Development of the National Territory’ (Loi d’Orientation sur l’Aménagenemt et le Développement Durable du Territoire), Voynet being the name of the Minister for Environment at that time.

Table 8.5 The new institutional structures established by the Chevènement Act Type of intermunicipal structure Population threshold

Mandatory responsibilities

Area-wide tax

Communauté urbaine

500,000

Economic, cultural and social development Spatial planning Social housing Urban policies for deprived areas Public utilites and public services Environment

Statutory TPU

Communauté d’agglomération

50,000 with a centre grouping more than 15,000 people

Economic, cultural and social development Spatial planning Social housing Urban policies for deprived areas

Statutory TPU

Communauté de communes

3,500

Economic development Spatial planning

TPU on a voluntary basis

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the balanced development of their area by setting up the modalities for such an achievement. The state is willing to help the joint authorities but under certain conditions. In order to receive subsidies from the state, the Voynet Act establishes several conditions. First, the joint authority must produce an ‘agglomeration project’, that is a jointly elaborated document whose aim is ‘to define the orientations of the urban area in the fields of economic development, social cohesion, territorial planning, transport, housing, policy for cities, environmental policy according to Agenda 21’. Once the urban areas have established communautés d’agglomération or communautés urbaines and when these joint authorities have approved an ‘agglomeration project’, they will be able to receive specific state grants. Central government subsidies are not piecemeal: they come in a package to fund the various actions approved in the ‘agglomeration project’. This package will be given through an ‘agglomeration contract’ signed between the state and the joint authority. In order to give consistency to the whole of public funding and to increase its efficiency, the ‘agglomeration contract’ will be inserted in the Contrat de Plan Etat-region10 (CPER) (Planning Agreement between the state and the Region) and will consequently be signed by the regional council. Another important innovation of the Voynet Act is the establishment of socalled ‘development councils’. These councils are consultative bodies, gathering the major social and economic actors of the urban area. Their establishment is a requirement of the Voynet Act and one of their main activities is the approval of the ‘agglomeration project’. They have been introduced as a tool to develop the involvement of civil society (economic actors, unions and the voluntary sector) in policy-making at the area-wide level and are thus becoming a body in the same vein of the Economic and Social Councils established in the regions by the decentralisation Acts of 1982 and 1983. The SRU Act The SRU Act which stands for ‘Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain’ (Solidarity and Urban Renewal) was enacted in December 2000. It is the last of a long series of actions and laws enacted in the last decade (such as the 1991 Act on cities (LOV), the 1996 Urban Pact (Pacte de Relance pour la Ville). It has two main objectives: i) to enhance social mixture in housing and to reduce social exclusion; and ii) to create a new more consistent system of territorial planning from the municipal to the area-wide level. The first objective is to be achieved by giving municipalities the goal of reaching a 20 per cent social housing proportion in their housing stock, with a financial system to force municipalities using money for this goal. In order to create high-density housing which is considered to be a better context for social integration than urban sprawl, the SRU Act seeks to promote a model of a more compact city by 10 Contrat de Plan Etat Region are agreements through which the state and the Region decide to jointly fund actions and Projects for a six year duration period. The state has thus such an agreement with all the 26 regions.

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developing collective housing through fiscal disadvantages on single housing. In addition, priority is to be given to public transport on the ground that a better accessibility within the urban area by cheap modes of transport will enhance social inclusion. The second objective is to be fulfilled by transforming the whole urban planning system. First, Master Plans (Schémas Directeurs) are to be replaced by Territorial Consistency Plans (Schéma de Cohérence Territoriale – SCOT), that are strategic documents, area-wide based, which aggregate previous sectoral plans such as urban travel plan, master plan, environmental plan, housing plan, etc. At the municipal level, a new planning document, the Urban Local Plan (Plan Local d’Urbanisme) replaces the land-use plan (Plan d’Occupation des Sols – POS) and must be consistent with the SCOT. In addition to the previous three laws, a new act was approved in early 2002: the Neighbourhood Act (Loi Démocratie de Proximité). It aims at giving more consultative power to the citizens. The most significant element of the new law is the establishment of consultative neighbourhood councils (conseils de quartier) in all municipalities of over 20,000 inhabitants. The creation of such councils is mandatory for the largest towns, those of more than 80,000 people. These councils are composed of municipal councillors and representatives of the civil society. They are mostly concerned with the Politique de la Ville. They have been conceived as the necessary institutional compensation for the structuring of political life at the area-wide level. 8.5.2 Tentative Assessment of the New Framework It is too soon to assess the impacts of the various institutional and economic instruments established by these four acts because time is important for these arrangements to show impacts which, if any, are more likely to be seen on a medium or long range. Second, and more important, there is a general belief that an area-wide institution associated with a pluri-sectoral approach and in concertation with ‘local living forces’ is the solution to produce better policies. As a consequence, the question of the likely impacts of these arrangements is not an issue for policy-makers, elected officials and the business community because this impact is given. Before giving a short presentation of the state of implementation of these four Acts, one remark must be made. Although presented as a chef d’œuvre of state coherence in policy-making, the first three Acts must first and foremost be considered as the products of single administrations within the Central Government: the Ministry of Interior for the Chevènement Act, the Ministry of Environment and the DATAR for the Voynet Act, the Ministry of Equipment and Public Works for the SRU Act. Cooperation between state administrations has been problematic during the elaboration of these laws. It is now up to the local level to aggregate these governance arrangements.

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The Chevènement Act The Chevènement Act is presented as an enormous success by the state as well as several associations of municipalities (AMGVF, ADCF (Association des Communautés de France). The ground for the success largely lies on quantitative data. Although the previous 1992 Local Government Act (ATR Act)11 had initiated similar joint authorities along with the possibility of establishing an area-wide business tax, the 1999 Act has shown a speeding up in the institutional creation of such joint authorities. As of January 2003, there were 14 communautés urbaines representing about 4.6 million people and 143 communautés d’agglomération grouping about 18.2 million inhabitants (compared to 5.1 in December 2000), that is all the urban areas as defined by the Insee. All these joint authorities have their own area-wide business tax since it is mandatory (DGCL, 2003). Quantitatively speaking, the 1999 Act can be considered a success. However, some important less optimistic remarks must be made. First, the Chevènement Act transfers significant powers from the municipalities to the newly established joint authorities in a domain called ‘community (area-wide) interest’ (intérêt communautaire). However this ‘community interest’ is not defined in the Act and is now the focus of debate between municipalities and joint authorities since it can either be defined in a larger sense (giving more powers to the joint authority) or on the contrary in a restrictive sense (keeping more powers at the municipal level). Second, several of the newly created communautés d’agglomération or even communautés urbaines have been established on a defensive position: they have been set up to protect themselves from their political, economic and social environment. This is clear in cases like Marseilles where the communauté urbaine does not cover the urban area and has instead been created to protect the political stronghold of the Mayor of Marseilles. Today, the Marseilles urban area is divided into several communautés d’agglomération and one communauté urbaine with little or no political relationships although they belong to the same functional territory. Similar situations can be seen in other large urban areas like Bordeaux where the communauté urbaine is surrounded by newly established communautés d’agglomération, built up to prevent an extension of the communauté urbaine in their very areas. The same can also be said about the Paris-Ile-de-France area where no less than 12 communautés d’agglomération (and several more in project) have been established which contributes to the already important fragmentation of the whole urban area.

11 ATR stands for Administration Territoriale de la République. It was approved in 1992. It established new EPCI like communautés de communes and communautés de villes and for the first time the possibility to create an area-wide business tax. Although a great success in rural areas, it was a failure in urban areas since only five communautés de villes were established and only in minor cities.

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Table 8.6 Evolution of inter-municipal structures with their own fiscality (1992–2002) 1992 Communautés urbaines Communautés d’agglomération Communautés de communes Districts * **

9 193 ** 214

1996

2000

12 50 894 318

12 143 * 1493 281

2002 14 2 032 0

in 2003 in 1993

Source: DGCL.

The Voynet Act Up to January 2003 15 agglomeration contracts had been signed. In the largest areas, the first one was signed in Bordeaux in December 2000, in Lille in May 2003, in Nancy and Rennes in June 2003. This means that most large urban areas are still in the process of elaborating and approval of their ‘agglomeration project’. The content of these contracts varies greatly from one city to the other. According to the first DATAR report (2003) which ‘assesses’ the 15 first agglomeration contracts, actions to foster the attractivity of the area are present (large infrastructure and equipment, R&D, culture), urban regeneration projects are mentioned as well as actions regarding the Policy for Cities. Sustainable development is mentioned because it is a requirement of the Voynet Act, but no concrete actions in that domain are indicated. The cost of these agglomeration contracts is also diverse, ranging from €1.2 billion for the Bordeaux area to €33 million to the Elbeuf area in Normandy. But this is also due to the diversity of the French urban areas. Funding comes from the metropolitan authority (between 19 per cent and 32 per cent depending on the area), the state (between 16 per cent and 40 per cent), the Region (between 7 and 24 per cent), the département (between 3 per cent and 19 per cent), the municipalities (between 1.5 per cent and 23 per cent) and the European Union (between 3 and 24 per cent). The SRU Act It is too soon to elaborate on the impact of the SRU Act on the economic and social situation of the French urban areas. It seems that the rules about social mixture have lead to a rather good production of social housing in the municipalities where it was missing. The elaboration and implementation of SCOTs are statutory powers of communautés d’agglomération and communautés urbaines. SCOTs are now in their very first phase of elaboration. However, some problems can already be seen such as the relations between SCOT and PLU when

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PLUs will soon be approved in some cities, although the SCOTs will not be ready on time, thus posing the question of the consistency of PLU with the SCOT. 8.5.3 The Future When the new conservative government came to power in June 2002, it made clear its intention to relaunch decentralisation by a second decentralisation step. Already the various acts approved and implemented by the previous government had established some progress in that domain, notably regarding the Ile-de-France where public transport and planning had not been transferred to local authorities and notably the region in 1982. According to the SRU Act, the elaboration of the SCOT has already started. In addition the SRU Act opened the board of the public transport authority, the STIF (Syndicat des Transports d’Ile-de-France) to the regional council, although the state remains in charge. This move was justified by the fact that the regional council has always contributed to the funding of the Ile-de-France public transport network while not being allowed to participate in the decision making. However, the idea was for the regional council to substitute the state in the medium range and thus to chair the STIF, which is part of the new decentralisation bill to be discussed in late 2003 (see below). The ‘Acte Deux’ has already started. The present government proposed and the Parliament approved a constitutional revision and two new acts regarding local referendum and the ‘right of experimentation’ (August 2003). The constitutional revision indicates that from now on, the French Republic is a decentralised country, which is highly symbolic. It also declares that the Republic is composed of the Regions, which is a constitutional guarantee given to this government tier which previously had no constitutional existence. The first act on local referendum establishes the rules for such a process. For the first time, it states that a local referendum, once approved by the voters, is adopted. Before, it was up to the mayor and the municipal council to decide whether to adopt it or not. The second act is concerned with the so-called ‘right of experimentation’ which gives local governments the possibility to be exempted of some laws and rules in order to experiment policies or any action of general interest. This would be for instance the case of the European structural funds, should a region decide to administer them. The most important move, however, concerned the government proposals presented in November to Parliament which concern new transfers of responsibilities to local governments. According to the government’s proposals, the state will transfer to the départements most national highways. The départements will also receive additional administrative responsibilities in the management of social affairs and social housing (as well as agglomerations in the matter of social housing), as well as in the education sector. The regions will be in charge of the economic development policies, notably the aid to SMEs. They will also be responsible for the whole of professional training. The municipalities will be

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mainly in charge of the policies of vicinity (politiques de proximité). The bill, once approved, will be implemented from January 2005. The AMGVF, the ADCF ( Association des Communautés de France: Association of the French Communities), the FNAU (Fédération Nationale des Agences d’Urbanisme: National Federation of Urban Development Agencies) and the newly created ACUF (Association des Communautés Urbaines de France: Association of the French Urban Communities) have strongly reacted to the government bill. The AMGVF declared that ‘cities and their agglomerations do not have the place they deserve in the new decentralisation process. They are very worried because of their absence in the bill’. These associations have presented an Urban Manifesto (Manifeste pour l’Urbain) to the Prime Minister in March 2003 to call the government on that matter. 8.6

European Policies

European policies presented in this section relate mainly to the Structural Funds, that is to Objectives 1, 2 and 3 funding and to the PIC ‘Urban’. It is important to note that from 2000, Objective 2 funds have included urban distressed areas. The impact of European policies and funding on urban national policies and more generally on cities is difficult to assess. As is known, the European Commission is not very comfortable dealing with urban issues. First, urban issues are generally the responsibility of national and local governments because of the subsidiarity principle. Second, European urban policies continue to balance between two objectives, economic competitiveness of urban areas and social solidarity, two objectives which, in practice, have some difficulty going handin-hand. First and foremost, as noted in a recent report (2002) of the Prospective Group on the future of the European Cohesion Policy, structural funds only represent 0.17 per cent of the national GNP and as such cannot pretend to have a significant impact on the economy and employment, even less regarding urban areas. In addition, it is difficult to assess the impact of Objective 3 funding since there is no clearly identified urban dimension in it. Regarding the URBAN Programme of the first period (1994–99), 13 areas were identified, involving 350,000 inhabitants: two in Ile-de-France with the rest being well distributed over the country. European funding amounted to €82 million for a total public intervention of €218 million. The European part of Urban II program (2000–2006) funding amounts to €102 million. It is concentrated on nine areas: four in the Ile-de-France with the remainer being in Bastia (Corsica), Bordeaux, Grenoble, Le Havre, and Strasbourg. The Ile-deFrance areas receive half of the national total. It is difficult to assess the URBAN programme, notably because it is integrated with other projects and actions of the Policy for Cities, such as GPU or contrats de ville. Second, the situations are very diverse and it is therefore difficult to make

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generalisations. However, a few general remarks can be made. First, the URBAN programmes have allowed for a better search for a link between social integration of these neighbourhoods and their economic development project (DIV, 2000). Second, URBAN has been an additional incentive for the involvement of the local population. Finally, it has permitted exchanges of ideas and dissemination of experiences between the various cities. More important is the funding from Objectives 1 and 2. Funding for urban areas goes mainly through the procedure of the CPER. In the current CPER generation (2000–2006), European Structural Funds account for about 20 per cent of the total €10.2 billion while the state give €17.5 billion, the regions €17.7 billion and other local governments about €5.7 billion. Once again, it is impossible to assess the impact of these structural funds on the state of the urban areas. However, some important remarks can be made. First, the impact of European funding and European policies is to be seen in ‘qualitative’ terms more than in ‘quantitative terms’. As such, the ‘European added value’ has been more on the methodology, on the modalities of policymaking than in the specific content of urban national policies. Very often noted are for instance the strategic approach and the pluri-annual funding carried out by European policies which has had an impact on national and local projects. Also the requirement of an evaluation of European policies has likely played a role in such requirements in the CPER for instance. Finally, the emphasis on partnership and citizen participation in European policies has had a role in the same emphasis in various French policies and projects like territorial projects and many instruments of the Policy for Cities. Two additional elements must be mentioned. First, starting from 2000, the time period of national territorial policies has been changed to take into consideration the European timing of structural funds. For instance, up to 1999, the CPER programming was based on a five year period. The growing importance of European structural funds has required a slight time adjustment. Today, the CPER lasts six years, thus matching the period of European programmes. Second, and much more important, is the emerging change of behaviour of the state with respect to the Ile-de-France. True, this cannot be only due to European policies but they have played a role by forcing the state to make decisions. Until the end of the 1990s, national urban policies tended to be inserted in the Paris–province paradigm that has been mentioned in the third section of this report. Two elements can be pointed out to show that this paradigm is not anymore accepted. First, the national government agreed to locate the project ‘Soleil’ (Sun), the construction of a giant nuclear particle accelerator, in the Ilede-France instead of in the area of Lille. Second, in 2000, the Ile-de-France area has started to benefit from Objective 2 funding for the first time. This can be explained by the change of attitude of the state, considering now that, although the Ile-de-France region is the richest region of France, it nevertheless contains

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pockets of poverty so important that Objective 2 money must be called for. This is also true for the Program Urban where the Ile-de-France had only four sites out of 13 in the first period (1994–99) and four sites out of nine and the half of the European funding in Urban II. Second, the Ile-de-France needs to increase its economic competitiveness with respect to other European and world cities and this must be done by concentrating infrastructure like infrastructure research (project Soleil) in its territory. 8.7

Conclusion

Regarading urban policies, France has been very innovative in the last decade but in a very specific way which obviously relates to the national history and the role of the state in policy-making. Although the country has embarked on a significant decentralisation process since the last 20 years, innovation has mainly been produced by the state and as such has concerned the whole territory. First and foremost, innovation means institutional innovation. Indeed, to address urban problems and issues throughout institutional structures is a definite French attribute, at least in the state apparatus. The innovation here is to create institutional structures at the area-wide level. Thus, new communautés urbaines and communautés d’agglomération have been established in order to address the specificities of large urban areas. The second innovation is a procedural one. Considering that institutional building was not sufficient to address urban problems, that is to produce adequate policies at the urban level, the state has proposed new modalities and instruments such as the various types of agreements (contrats de ville, contrat d’agglomération, contrat de plan Etat-Region) and the production of territorial projects like the projets d’agglomération. The third innovation is the involvement of the urban population or at least the establishment of structures aiming at involving the population such as the conseils de développement and the conseils de quartier. These three institutional and procedural innovations should permit, in the state view, the elaboration and implementation of adequate policies (in their content and their territorial relevance) to address the most serious urban problems which are economic development and the lack of social cohesion. It is now up to the local actors and leaders to use these new arrangements and it is too soon to pronounce any judgement in that domain. Another element must be stressed which is the changing attitude of the state regarding the status of the Paris area. Indeed, it can be said that the paradigm of regional planning policies (Aménagement du Territoire), that is the permanent search for a national territorial balance between Paris and the province is over. This seems to be largely due to the ongoing European integration and internationalisation process which has entailed this paradigm shift by which, in the state view, Paris is no longer considered only with respect to the national

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territory but also as an international urban area in competition with other cities and which as such must be aided. The consequence of these significant changes is that large urban areas are on the verge of becoming new political territories: a move that the direct election of their intermunicipal structures would confirm. It is a proposal that is being largely discussed and which has the support of the leaders of the largest urban areas. This would mean the end of the ‘Jardin à la française’, the end of this Cartesian and Napoleonic political and territorial model, a move that many wish and as many others fear and which is at the heart of the debate regarding the second decentralisation step. References AMGVF (Association des Maires des Grandes Villes de France) (1994), Mon Pays c’est la Ville, Manifeste des Maires de Grandes Villes de France, Paris: Grasset. Ampe, F. and Neuschwander, C. (2002), La République des Villes, Editions de l’Aube, Paris: DATAR, Series ‘Bibliothèque des Territoires’. Behar, D. and Méjean, P. (2001), ‘Contrats d’agglomération: l’obligation d’innover’, rapport de synthèse de l’opération ‘sites témoins’ des contrats d’agglomération, DATAR-AMGVF, June. Cavallier, G. (1998), ‘Rapport du groupe de travail interministériel et interpartenaires sur la définition des contrats de ville du XIIè plan’, Paris: La documentation Française. CERTU (2003), Annuaire Statistique – Transports Collectifs Urbains, Ministère de l’Equipement. DATAR (Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale) (2002), Les villes européennes, analyse comparative, Documentation Française, Paris. DATAR (2003), ‘Analyse critique des contrats d’agglomération signés’, DATAR, July. Dexia (2002), Les finances locales dans les quinze pays de l’Union Européenne, Paris: Dexia. DGCL (Direction Générale des Collectivités Locales) (2003), Les collectivités locales en chiffres, Paris: DGCL. DIV (Délégation Interministérielle à la Ville) (2000), L’initiative communautaire Urban I (1994–1999): les 13 programmes français, Paris: DIV. Donzelot, J. and Estèbe, P. (1994), L’Etat animateur: essai sur la politique de la ville, Paris: Esprit. Estèbe, P. (2001), ‘La politique de la ville: de la discrimination positive à la cohésion territoriale’, Les Cahiers du CR-DSU, 29–30, June. GART (2002), Etat d’avancement des PDU en juin 2002, Paris: GART. Groupe de Prospective Opérationnelle sur l’avenir de la politique de Cohésion (2002), Note d’Orientation, Paris: DATAR-SGCI. IAURIF (2001), ‘40 ans en Ile de France: rétrospective 1960–2000’, Etudes et Développement, Paris: IAURIF. INSEE Première (2002), No. 835, March. INSEE Première (2001), ‘Les grandes villes étendent leur influence’, No. 765, April.

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Jacquier, C. (2001), ‘Urban Fragmentation and Revitalization Policies in France’, in T. Andersen, and R. van Kempen (eds), Governing European Cities: Social Fragmentation, Social Exclusion and Urban Governance, Aldershot: Ashgate. Sueur, J.P. (1998), Demain la ville, Paris: Documentation Française.

Annex

Source: INSEE. Note: 1990 and 1999 census data for ‘urban areas’ (aires urbaines) have been made comparable by Insee (National Institute for Statistics). 1982 data refer to the ‘agglomeration’ which is smaller than the urban area.

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Chapter 9

Urban Germany: The Future Will Be Different Klaus R. Kunzmann1

9.1

Introduction

Four things are essential to understand urban policies in Germany at the beginning of the twenty-first century. First, in 2004, 15 years after reunification, Germany was still a divided country. Despite all political promises and considerable annual transfer payments, urban problems in the Länder of West Germany differ from those in the East. While most cities in the West are still growing economically and demographically, cities in the East suffer from considerable population decline, with all its implications for housing, urban infrastructure and local economic development. Cities in the east (with the exception of cities such as Potsdam or Ludwigsfelde in the immediate hinterland of Berlin) are struggling with the spatial consequences of shrinking, and those in the west are forced to adapt to less favourable and prosperous conditions. Even in what was West Germany, however, inequalities between prospering city regions in the south (for example, Munich or Stuttgart) and stagnating cities in west or north of Germany (for example, Essen or Bremerhaven) are growing Second, as a consequence of federal policies, industrial decline and deregulation, German cities are increasingly confronted with the dwindling of their local budgets. This, in turn, has significant negative impacts on the ability of cities to sustain their physical, social and cultural infrastructure. This is also true for Berlin, the new federal capital. The financial base of the reunited city state is disastrous, as the dreams of regaining pre-war importance as a European metropolis have not yet come true. Consequently urban conditions still vary considerably between urban districts in the east and those in the west of the capital city, while a more prosperous suburban belt is slowly emerging.

1 University of Dortmund. The author would like to thank Simon Guentner, Matthias Sauter, and Wendelin Strubelt for their valuable comments to an earlier version of this chapter.

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Third, in the early twenty-first century, as in other European countries, the political debate in Germany centres around a fundamental reform of the welfare state. Urban policy issues such as the prolongation of traditional subsidies for housing, education or mobility, are clearly linked to this debate. In addition, immigration policies in times of demographic decline, high unemployment rates and minimum wage disputes are still under review. The ministry responsible at the federal level, which, after the last elections in 2002 was renamed Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau- und Wohnungswesen (Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing) is clearly focusing on transport rather than on urban or spatial policies. One more policy arena affecting urban development, is controversial: the Federal Government and the Deutsche Staedtetag (an association of larger German cities), differ in their view about the appropriate reform of local taxes for improving the local tax system. A compromise solution, however, seems to be in the pipeline. Fourth, in contrast to other European countries (United Kingdom, Italy, France) urban policy at the national level is comparably weak in Germany. Constrained by the constitutional framework the federal tier has little urban policy power over the Länder and local governments further down the hierarchy. The Federal Government can set the legal rules for urban development mainly through the Bundesbaugesetz (Federal Building Code), which includes the Bundesraumordnungsgesetz (Federal Spatial Planning Act) as well as the Federal Baunutzungsverordnung (Land Use Ordinance), and it can monitor urban and spatial development. This is effectively done via the Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (Federal Office for Building and Planning). In addition, the Federal Government can launch pilot urban programmes, so-called ExWoSt programmes (experimental housing and urban development programmes) to explore and demonstrate how urban problems can be approached. Increasingly important, however, is the federal government’s function at the European tier, where it acts as the trustee of the interests of the nation and the Länder (BBR, 2000a; BBR, 2000b). All German Länder, particularly the larger ones such as North RhineWestphalia, Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg, have their own urban policies and programmes. They complement federal policies or promote innovative approaches to address region-specific problems. Benefiting from constitutional statute, the local governments have considerable power to govern their own affairs though, given the regulatory financial system in the country, their independence is constrained. Given all these controversial policy arenas within the country, the European dimension of urban policies finds little interest among urban policy-makers. Even the accession of the Eastern European states to the European Union does not raise much concern for their likely impact on cities in the country. Nevertheless, many cities – comforted by EU regional and urban policy and used to receiving financial support from the respective EU programmes – are not enthusiastic about prospects that, after 2006, such support may be given primarily to cities in

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the accession countries of Eastern Europe. Such concerns reflect the expectation that the EU is mainly a source of additional income to local governments for infrastructure and local economic development projects. 9.2

National Urban Policies until the Mid-1990s: A Summary

Until the mid-1990s, urban policies in Germany, at Federal, Länder and local tiers of planning and decision-making were focused on the following action areas: •

•

•

•

The implications of German reunification on urban development in East Germany clearly dominated the political arena after 1989. Cities and regions in East Germany had to be modernised and West German instruments of urban development be introduced and locally applied. All this has been done with considerable transfer payments (around €100 billion annually) from West to East Germany. Private land-ownership had to be secured and a functioning property market had to be re-installed. Supported by an armada of planning consultants from all over the country, as well as by knowledge transfer in the form of partnerships of West and East German local and regional governments, local planning machineries had to be established and staffed. Investments in urban development were encouraged by generous tax incentives to private developers and investors to conserve and modernise the run-down housing stock in East German cities. Obviously, the reinstatement of Berlin as the capital city of Germany has been a key concern of the federal and Berlin governments after the political decision was made in 1991 to move the capital function to Berlin. Reuniting the divided territory, housing the comprehensive machinery of the Federal Government in the city and developing land to attract national and international investors have been the challenges since. In addition, some policy attention had to be given to Bonn, to compensate for the loss of the capital function, though half of the ministries had still remained in Bonn. Reacting to policy efforts at the European level, the Federal Government launched two national spatial development documents, the Raumordnungspolitische Orientierungsrahmen (Principles for Federal Spatial Development) and subsequently the Raumordnungspolitische Handlungsrahmen (Federal Action Plan for National Spatial Development). Although both documents did not receive much political weight and popular and media attention – and were not linked to any financial funds for application or even implementation – they became general guidelines for planners and policy advisors in federal and Länder institutions. The late 1980s and early 1990s were periods during which the environmental dimensions of urban development had a high profile. Urban containment, brownfield redevelopment, energy conservation or mobility reduction were the objectives formulated and applied wherever it was appropriate, feasible

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•

•

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and politically acceptable. Very much encouraged by a committed and supportive minister at the federal level, most urban development policies at federal, Länder and local levels of planning and decision-making had a clear focus on environmental concerns. Consequently, most policy instruments and documents were screened and formulated to incorporate environmental principles and targets. As a contribution to the HABITAT Conference in Istanbul 1996, a national Plan of Action for Sustainable Development had been produced (BMBau, 1996). Emerging social problems in cities, caused by growing unemployment and large flows of migrants form Southeast Europe and the former Soviet Union, had caused the Federal Government, albeit rather belatedly, to explore ways and means to address urban problems of polarisation and fragmentation (Programm Stadtteile mit besonderem Erneuerungsbedarf: die Soziale Stadt). First community development projects were piloted in selected cities to raise awareness and to test approaches to integrated approaches. Thereby the federal initiative benefited much from earlier efforts and experience in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (1993) and Hamburg (1994 to 1998), as well as from the Community Initiative URBAN, which the European Commission had launched in the early 1990s (Sauter 2001). During the 1990s the urban policy of the Land North Rhine-Westphalia, just to refer to one of the 16 Länder, had focused much on urban policies centred around the Internationale Bauausstellung Emscher Park (IBA), an innovative approach to revitalise an industrial landscape. The project received much political and financial support from the Land (with additional funding from EU programmes. It pioneered incremental and grassroots approaches of creative brownfield redevelopment, saved the industrial heritage from demolition, promoted affordable housing, demonstrated how to regenerate a polluted urban industrial environment, and contributed much to the reimaging of a tedious urban landscape.

The political environment in Germany prior to the mid-1990s was in a mood of economic optimism and normative policies. Though first attempts to deregulation and to the slimming down of the public sector were initiated, urban development was still very much a public sector domain. 9.3

The Present State of the Cities

By the end of 1999, nine years after reunification, Germany had a population of 82.19 million: 64.83 million lived in the former West and 17.33 million in the former East Germany (BBR, 2003). This was a slight increase of 2.41 per cent from 79.75 million as against 1990. However, already from 1990 to 1999 (end of the year) there were differences. While the population in the West grew by 5.3 per cent, the five Eastern states suffered from a decline of 4.6 per cent. This trend will

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continue. Forecasts by the BBR for the year 2020, based on past demographic trends, show that a slight decline of the overall population to 81.5 million has to be anticipated, with unequal developments in West (–0.2 per cent) and East Germany (–0.4 per cent). Speculative forecasts for the decades after 2020 anticipate a further decline to about 70 million, unless proactive migration policies stop the decline. Obviously, such trends have different implications for spatial categories. The population of most city regions in West Germany will grow further, though at the cost of core cities and more remote rural areas, while the population in the East will decline in both urban and in rural areas. The percentage of the German population living in cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants (at the time of writing the figure is around 80 per cent), will grow further. In the year 2000 there were 14,196 municipalities in Germany, including 5686 in the East. Eighty-two municipalities had a population of more than 100,000, though only 12 such municipalities were in the East (BBR, 2000a). The population forecast for 2020 shows that most core cities in German agglomerations will loose population until 2010, while their suburban belts will still attract households, the exceptions being Hamburg, Berlin and Cologne (Table 9.1). However, traditional city boundaries matter. The city of Essen, for example, is loosing population to the neighbouring communities due to shortage of unbuilt land for new development, while other cities, such as Dortmund have still land reserves for new suburban residencies. Table 9.1 Population dynamics in selected cities in Germany from the 1990s and until 2020 1990 Berlin Hamburg Munich Cologne Frankfurt Essen Dortmund Stuttgart Düsseldorf Bremen Duisburg Hanover

3,433,700 1,652,400 1,229,000 953,600 644,900 627,000 599,100 580,000 575,800 551,200 535,400 513,000

2000

2010

2020

3,382,100 1,703,500 1,199,400 965,000 644,300 5,959,00 588,200 580,700 568,100 537,300 515,700 512,900

3,440,400 1,698,000 1,219,700 984,100 641,100 558,800 551,800 565,300 558,700 512,700 477,700 497,300

3,498,500 1,681,200 1,228,300 990,300 638,100 524,200 514,900 554,800 546,600 491,400 445,100 483,100

Sources: BBR, 2003: INKAR Pro CD-ROM.

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Table 9.2 Municipalities and urban population in Germany in the year 2000 Population