Table of contents:
Insurance Benefits For Sustainable Urban Planning In Europe – In times of rapid urbanisation, Europe is facing increasingly difficult urban challenges, from the global health crisis and the rise of digitization to social inequality, demographic change, climate change and environmental degradation.
To meet these pressing challenges, EU cities must transform and adapt, pushing them to develop creative and innovative capabilities within their competences, funding and resources.
Insurance Benefits For Sustainable Urban Planning In Europe
In this transformative perspective for cities, the European Union-funded European Urban Initiative (EUI) supports urban areas of all sizes through innovative action, capacity and knowledge building, and policy development and communication for sustainable urban development.
Governing Sustainable Transformations Of Urban Social Ecological Technological Systems
Create and provide opportunities and environments to implement heavy urban strategies. These projects test new planning solutions, methods and models, build capacity and share knowledge in the field of sustainable urban development.
The EUI is rooted in a strong commitment to strengthening the urban dimension of EU policies and the EU’s belief that cities should be involved in the design and implementation of policy measures in response to local challenges.
Are you working in a city authority based in the European Union, do you want to learn from other cities, share experience, or are you looking for funding to tackle a specific urban problem with new and bold solutions?
This new initiative is a vital tool to support cities of all sizes, to build capacity and knowledge, to support innovation and to develop innovative, transferable and scalable solutions to EU-relevant urban challenges.
Offices Around The World
The main principle of the EUI logic is to create an efficient value chain between the various components as shown below.
For the period 2021-2027. objective 5 of the European Integration Policy “Europe closer to the citizens” was introduced as a strengthened commitment to integrated territorial development and the promotion of sustainable urban development.
At least 8% of CFRE resources in each member state must also be invested in priorities and projects chosen by the cities themselves and based on their own sustainable urban development strategies.
The EUI will also support the multi-level work of the Urban Agenda for the EU and intergovernmental cooperation on urban issues.
Ten Benefits Of Sustainable Construction
During 2014-2020, around 115 billion euros were invested from the cohesion policy funds in cities. Of this, €17 billion was implemented at local level through more than 980 sustainable urban development strategies managed directly by city authorities. Parallel to these significant urban investments, the Urban Innovative Activities (UIA) initiative directly supported cities to try out innovative solutions.
The Urban Development Network (UDN) was created to support dialogue and exchange of information between “Article 7 cities”, Action Cities for Urban Innovation and the European Commission (hereafter “the Commission”).
The URBACT III program enhanced the ability of cities to collaborate and develop integrated solutions to common urban challenges by creating transnational networks, learning experiences and identifying best practices to improve policies and strategies for sustainable urban development.
EUI is a new initiative that will build on this past experience by stepping forward to provide consistent support to cities; promote host city-led innovation, exchange of urban knowledge, practices and capacity building.
Sustainable Cities After Covid 19: Are Barcelona Style Green Zones The Answer?
Discover the previous experiments carried out by UIA-funded cities and all the knowledge gained from the implementation of these innovative solutions. Do something for our planet, print this page only if necessary. Even a small action can make a big difference when done by millions of people!
Agriculture and the food system Air pollution Swimming water quality Biodiversity: state of habitats and species Buildings and construction Chemicals Circular economy Climate change impacts, risks and adaptation to climate change Climate change mitigation: reducing emissions Electric vehicles
Energy Energy efficiency Environmental health impacts Environmental imbalances Extreme weather: floods, droughts and heat Forests and forestry Industry Land use Conservation and restoration Noise
Plastic pollution Production and consumption Renewable energy Use of resources and materials Motor transport Sea and coastal lands Sustainable development challenges Sustainable development solutions
Lack Of Coordination And Monitoring Slows Climate Adaptation In Poland
Austria Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Norway Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia The Sweden Switzerland Türkiye
Who benefits from nature in cities? Social inequality in access to green and blue urban spaces across Europe
Parks, urban forests, tree-lined streets and riverfronts support urban well-being by providing places to rest, relax and exercise, and by keeping temperatures cool. However, not everyone in Europe has equal access to green spaces in cities. This brief examines evidence of socio-economic and demographic inequalities in access to the health benefits of urban green and blue spaces across Europe. It shows examples of green spaces developed to meet the needs of vulnerable and vulnerable social groups.
Accessible and high-quality green and blue urban spaces, such as parks, urban forests, tree-lined streets, courtyards, riverbanks and coastlines, provide significant health benefits to local communities (, 2020). Green spaces improve air quality, reduce noise and increase biodiversity (Maes et al., 2019). Green spaces also reduce temperatures during hot periods and provide cool and shaded areas (Romanello et al., 2021). Local communities use green spaces for exercise and social interaction, as well as for recreation and mental recovery (see Figure 1). Exposure to green spaces provides health benefits by reducing mortality and morbidity from chronic diseases, improving mental health and pregnancy outcomes, and reducing obesity (, 2020).
Barcelona Bets On Green To Boost City’s Mental Health
Urban green spaces are factors of sustainable development in the international framework and European policy. The UN’s Global Sustainable Development Goal 11.7 clearly aims to ensure “universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible green and public spaces” (UN, 2015). The EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 calls for nature to be brought back to cities by creating affordable green infrastructure with biodiversity (EC, 2020). The strategy also emphasizes the importance of developing greening plans for major cities (EC, 2020). The role of natural solutions for climate resilience is recognized in the EU Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change (EC, 2021a). The previous EU Green Infrastructure Strategy (EC, 2013) highlighted the benefits of green spaces in combating social exclusion and strengthening communities. The signatories of the Green Cities Agreement, an initiative of the European Commission for cities that strive for sustainable development, are committed to preserving and improving urban biodiversity by increasing the amount and quality of green spaces in cities (EC, 2021b) .
The Green and Blue Zones in particular benefit the health and well-being of certain socio-economic and demographic groups. In general, people of lower socio-economic status benefit more from urban green spaces than privileged groups, especially in terms of reduced stress and improved mental health (Ward Thompson et al., 2016; Marselle et al., 2020).
In Barcelona, Norway and the Netherlands, urban gardens and courtyards have been found to provide opportunities for social integration, access to healthy food and environmental education for low-income groups (Camps-Calvet et al., 2016 ; Veen and Eiter, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted the societal importance of green spaces for recreation, especially for those who do not have access to private green spaces (Korpilo et al., 2021; Reinwald et al., 2021; Ugolini et al., 2020).
For children and youth, greener environments are associated with improved physical and mental health, including improved memory, attention and learning ability, and reduced stress (Dadvand et al., 2015; Vujcic and Tomicevic-Dubljevic, 2018; Andrusaityte et al. et al. ., 2020). Parks and playgrounds encourage participation in social activities and thus contribute to social well-being and social cohesion (Nordbø et al., 2019). Nature education and play can help children develop their motor skills (Kabisch et al., 2016; see also the example from Flanders). In contrast, studies show that young adults and children with relatively low exposure to green space are more likely to have poor vision, obesity and oxidative stress (Dadvand et al., 2017; Petraviciene et al., 2018 ; De Petrys et al., 2021).
Over 4% Of Summer Mortality In European Cities Is Attributable To Urban Heat Islands
Older adults also derive physical and mental health benefits from using green spaces (Ensle and Kabisch, 2020). These benefits include increased levels of physical activity (Machón et al., 2020), associated with improved cardiovascular health (Kabisch et al., 2021), and a lower risk of heat-related deaths (Bukart et al., 2016) . . Even seeing a blue space, such as the coast, was associated with a lower risk of depression (Dempsey et al., 2018). Accessible green space provides space for social interactions, which can combat the risk of social isolation among older people (Camps-Calvet et al., 2016; Artmann et al., 2017).
In Berlin, London and Sheffield, urban green spaces have been found to promote the social integration of disadvantaged populations by functioning as places where migrants and asylum seekers can connect with others (Rishbeth et al., 2019).
In 2018, green infrastructure represented an average of 42% of the urban area in 38 Member States (-38).
, excluding Liechtenstein. However, there was variation in this area between countries and within individual countries. Trnava, Slovakia is the European city with the smallest overall green space, 6.8% of the city’s total area. Cáceres in Spain is the city with the highest percentage of green space (95.8%) (, 2021a); in some cases, the high share of green spaces is due to the large length of the city’s administrative zone, for example, including the forest areas around the city center. In addition, the field of
