Health and quality of life in urban areas
Competing for urban land
Synthesis Report Template
Urban structure highly depends on urban management and policies applied at different level, together
with other drivers like market and globalisation. Those aspects determine the urban development,
influencing on urban patterns, flows and at the same time, on the quality of the surroundings of the
urban areas.
Moreover, people’s perception, aspirations and behaviour influence to a great extent many socioeconomic dynamics and even certain developments in the urban context.
Linking quality of life and health of citizens, primary components of people’s well-being, with urban
structure, patterns and flows are the main objectives of the work package Health and Quality of Life
in Urban areas through a literature review and the development of a synthesis paper, basis of the
discussion of the Dialogue Café that is going to be held in Barcelona on the 17th and 18th of
October, 2012.
The work package Competing for urban land is going to focus its work on land-use and land
management practices that have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients,
air, plants and animals, landscape and landform. They also affect social and economic development.
Integrated, long-term land-use policies are crucial for sustainable urban development at local and
regional levels not least to mitigate strong market forces which try to appropriate the best sites.
While there is a high complexity of land-use issues, there is no clear consensus on preferred
settlement structures and how sustainable land-use should be measured. Although the driving forces
of urban sprawl are well known and analysed, knowledhe and implementation gaps still exist in terms
of future scenarios and guidelines for action. From a scoaial perspective urban sprawl contributes to
social segregation often separating middle-income from low-income families and ethnic minority
groups. From an economic perspective the cost of a non-integrated settlement model are also highly
relevant. Typical incurred costs include commuting time, congestion and travel delays as well as
additional costs for urban infrastructure.
The achievement of sustianable land-use and settlement structures seem to be mainly a question of
decision-making and implementation. Thus scientific analyses, advice and evaluation are important
parts of implementation.
Not being able to cover every aspect we have chosen to focus on Shrinking Cities and Growing
Cities and the three key aspects: sociocultural space, ecosystem services and building mass &
physical structures. These can be discussed across a number of themes/urban functions e. g. social
services, spatial planning, transport planning, green structures, economics etc.
Urban-NEXUS is a coordinated action to facilitate a collaborative approach by means of developing a
structured dialogue. This will enable rich communication and partnership building, leading to joint
research and the exchange of knowledge and experience. It has 3 main objectives:
- It aims to identify innovative ways for urban policy makers and researchers to collaborate to
solve the complex and interrelated problems that confront sustainable urban development
- It will increase awareness among relevant stakeholders in the 5 thematic areas, and allow
them to exchange knowledge, collaborate and cooperate.
- It will make possible partnerships between relevant stakeholders, in particular researchers and
those who apply knowledge, for long-term strategic cooperation across scales and disciplines.
That’s why the involvement of relevant stakeholders in the provision of information and mainly, with
their participation into the discussions being held in the Dialogue Café are crucial parts of the UrbanNexus project development.
If you would like to provide input of some of the above mentioned issues corresponding to Health and
Quality of Life in urban areas and/or to Competing for urban land, please complete the attached
template.
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Health and quality of life in urban areas
Competing for urban land
Synthesis Report Template
You can provide as much information as you think would be relevant for the project, including
research, policy or practice-related information, just copying “your submission” table as many times as
needed.
Please return completed templates to Miquel Sáinz de la Maza (miquel.sainz@uab.cat) or to
Núria Blanes (nuria.blanes@uab.cat) by 6th of July 2012.
Please feel free to forward this request to relevant contacts and colleagues.
And thank you for your contribution.
Britt.Olofsdotter, Miquel Sáinz de la Maza and Núria Blanes
URBAN-NEXUS Work Package 3 and 4
t: 0034 93 581 3546
miquel.sainz@uab.cat
nuria.blanes@uab.cat
....Continued overleaf
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About you:
1. Name
2. Position
Job title
3. Phone
+<country code><area code><number>
4. E-mail
About your networks:
1. Name
2. Website
3. Contact person
Your submission (please copy and paste the table as many times as you need):
1. What?
Name of the policy, project or practice
2. When?
e.g. date the policy took effect or the project was reported, period during
which the practice was undertaken.
3. Where?
e.g. if specific to geographical location, city, region.
4. Summary
Highlight aims and objectives, method, conclusions, output,
recommendations. Impact if known, any follow-up proposed, constraints,
gaps, key learning points etc.
5. Your own
comments
If you would like to offer a positive critique on this item, or to describe your
experience of partnership approaches.
6. Lead organisation
7. Other partners,
contributors
Including any European institutions/funding
8. Web Links
e.g. project website, key reports etc
Please tick the appropriate box(es) to tell us what your submission is about:
Research
Management
Policies
Transport/Mobility
Accessibility
Environmental Stressors
Urban structure
Vulnerable groups /Social
equity
Health
Growing cities
Shrinking cities
Sociocultural space
Ecosystem services
Building mass & physical
structures
Economics
Page 3 of 3
Policy
Practice
Experience of partnership