ABSTRACT
Since the nineties, urban areas have assumed a growing importance in EU Cohesion Policy. This process, which is being implemented through various political steps and policy instruments, has led cities to be recognised as key elements in the promotion of balanced development. After decades of planning experiments at different territorial scales, however, the extent to which EU urban policy has contributed to regional development is currently under debate. This paper seeks to describe the evolution of the urban dimension within EU Cohesion Policy, with a focus on the role of cities in those countries and regions experiencing development problems.
1. Introduction
Since the end of the eighties, regions and urban areas have been viewed as key elements of territorial development in the European Community (EC). Following the introduction of the European Regional Development Fund in the mid-1970s, a milestone in this process was the 1988 reform of European Structural Funds, after which European regional policy was radically reshaped according to a series of new principles including: firstly, a clearer identification of the ‘lagging regions’1 where EC support should be mainly addressed and, secondly, an extensive ‘integrated approach’ to planning in order to focus on multiple development objectives at regional and local levels (Brunazzo 2016).2
Author’s elaboration on EUROSTAT data.
Author’s elaboration on EUROSTAT data.
The other considerable effect of the 1988 reform lies in the recognition of the role cities (and urban policy) can play in the regional development process and, therefore, in the reduction of regional disparities. As a result, through a process supported by the growing political and financial commitment of various EU institutions,3 from the early 1990s the space for urban initiatives within Cohesion Policy has grown substantially in different directions (Atkinson 2015; Atkinson and Zimmermann 2016; Cotella 2019; Hamedinger and Wolffhardt 2010). These efforts have led to an acknowledgement of the development of cities and regions as two elements of the same question, and a recognition that urban development is a relevant policy challenge that remains at the heart of the latest Cohesion Policy reforms (Barca 2009; Bachtler et al. 2017; Dijkstra, Garcilazo, and McCann 2013; McCann 2015; Medeiros 2019; Piattoni and Polverari. 2016).
After three decades of extensive intervention on cities and regions, however, there is no clear evidence of the impact of EU urban policies on regional development and vice versa. Different analyses have recognised positive feedback in some countries and programming periods (EC – European Commission 2006, 2009; EP – European Parliament 2005, 2014), but the role played by EU regional policy on the reduction of socio-economic inequalities within and among urban areas remains unclear. This is further demonstrated by the fact – as illustrated in section 3 of this paper – that regional disparities are found in both more and less urbanised countries in Europe (EUROSTAT 2016; EC – European Commission 2016).
At the same time, we also need to acknowledge that Cohesion Policy has stimulated the urban policy process in many parts of Europe. In several less developed regions, substantial EU funds were made available by regional authorities for the implementation of projects with various impacts on the urban dimension (Ramsden and Colini 2013). For many cities across Europe, this has meant undertaking relevant change processes through the regeneration of deprived neighborhoods, the construction of modern mobility infrastructures, or new facilities to increase urban attractiveness or the quality of life.
Against the background of such a mixed picture, this paper acts as a framework for the case studies presented in the special issue ‘Urban change and regional development at the margins of Europe’, which seeks to analyse the different role played by EU regional policy in the development process of four Southern European cities (Porto, Malaga, Palermo, and Thessaloniki). Looking at the different ways these cities have dealt with urban issues in the context of the EU approach to regional development, this paper provides a territorial perspective on regional disparities and a description of the process that has led the urban dimension to be addressed within EU Cohesion Policy.
The paper is structured as follows: After this introduction, in section two the debate relating to regional disparities in the European Union is briefly reviewed, and the way urban areas are viewed in literature as part of the regional development process. In the third section, the changing geography of the EU from the perspective of Cohesion Policy is described, with a focus on the importance of cities in the lagging regions. The fourth section provides an overview of the political process that has led urban initiatives to become a pillar of EU regional policy together with an analysis of the different interpretations of the concept of ‘sustainable urban development’ in different planning contexts. Finally, with a view to the challenges faced by cities in the post-2020 period, in the last section we outline the limits and potential of EU regional policy in addressing some relevant development issues in urban areas.
2. The changing geography of regional disparities under the lens of Cohesion Policy
Cohesion Policy was initially conceived as a distributive instrument to improve the economic performances of the poorest regions and, through that, to reducing disparities among European countries (Leonardi 2005). In that perspective, based on a classical economic approach to regional development, inequalities among regions are seen as the effect of the uneven distribution of indicators such as GDP per capita, income level, employment, etc., (OECD 2003). This quantitative approach to regional development has never lost its importance within Cohesion Policy, as GDP has always been used to define the eligibility of regions to access Structural Funds, and to determine the intensity of the EU intervention (Bachtler et al. 2017).
This section outlines the changing geography of the Europe of regions as a result of the eligibility criteria adopted by Cohesion Policy, with a particular attention on the ‘lagging regions’ and their geographical distribution over time. Thus, its aim is not to speculate on the effectiveness of Cohesion Policy, but rather to provide a general background of the regional contexts where the planning processes being described in the special issue have taken place. The timeframe taken into consideration is the five programming cycles between 1989 and 2020, with ‘less developed regions’ (LDR) referring to all regions having a GDP per head of less than 75% of the Community average.
When the new Cohesion Policy began in 1989, the European Community consisted of 12 countries with vastly different demographic sizes and levels of development. For instance, the GDP per head compared to the European Community average ranged from 117% in Germany to 47% in Greece. In the initial year of the 1989–1993 period the ‘less developed regions’ covered the entire country of Ireland, Portugal, and Greece, including their capital cities. In Spain and Italy, the largest countries targeted by Cohesion Policy, LDRs covered a significant part of the national territory, corresponding to 58.4% and 36.7% of the domestic population, respectively. The group included some of the largest European regions – i.e. Andalusia in Spain or Campania in Italy –, which were also home to metropolitan areas and regional capitals, such as Naples (IT), Palermo (IT), Seville (ES) and Malaga (ES). After the five Länder of East Germany – home to around 15 million inhabitants – joined the European Community in 1990, the number of LDRs rose to 44, corresponding to around 22% of its total population.
The accession to the EU of countries, such as Austria, Finland, and Sweden in the mid-1990s brought no dramatic change to the ‘geography’ of Cohesion Policy in terms of the distribution of less-developed regions (see Figure 1: 1994–1999 period). In contrast, after the expansion of the European Union towards the Eastern countries was co...
