Urban agenda and urban sustainability strategies : taking stock of policy implementation and policy discussion

Socio-ecological transitions are a main project, current EU policies, national environmental politics, and regional as well as local action address. Manifold approaches exist and the European Union is anxious to coordinate and facilitate the process of a consolidated transition. Therefore, a policy paper is being developed, the European Urban Agenda, which operates on all governmental levels to allow cities more capability in realising said socio-ecological transition according to their own structural, spatial, social, economic, and environmental predispositions. In a broad study of 40 cities in Europe, we gathered a vast amount of empirical data that indicates the individual approaches towards a transition as well as their relations to European and national policies. This paper presents an extension of this research results. We depart from the results of the ROCSET study that is centred on the possibilities of self-organisation and ask about local sustainability strategies with concrete aims and goals. Further, the results of a consultation process on this European Urban Agenda are interpreted as an indicator on how the general perception of EU urban policies differs from actor to actor. Such an Agenda can contribute to unify individual approaches towards sustainability and consolidate strategies while maintaining the individuality of the local approaches. This paper starts with an outline of the research of the ROCSET study. In the second chapter, the actual urban sustainability strategies are reconstructed to take stock of the current situation in our forty researched cities. The third chapter analyses the consultation process on the European Urban Agenda that then can be taken as an indicator on what the expectations for such an agenda are, and how they might reflect currently existing urban strategies.