Impacts on Life Satisfaction and Policy Development in Spain as a Result of EU Urban Integration Initiatives
Impacts on Life Satisfaction and Policy Development in Spain as a Result of EU Urban Integration Initiatives

Author: Clemente J. Navarro Yáñez

Publisher: Independent Author

Published: 2023-07-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781805305217

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Urban areas are strategic spaces for the promotion of sustainable development and socio-spatial cohesion in Europe. Around 75 per cent of the European population lives in urban areas, generating about 80 per cent of the European GDP. However, urban areas also face the challenges of poverty and social exclusion in some neighbourhoods, as well as socio-spatial segregation processes or environmental problems. Due to this relevance and these challenges, since the 1990s, the European Union has been shaping a policy area through different initiatives to promote development and social cohesion in cities. Nowadays, EU urban initiatives-also termed the urban dimension of the Cohesion Policy-include different initiatives supporting local plans to promote sustainable urban development, initiatives seeking innovative solutions to urban problems, or the sharing and increasing of capabilities among national and local policymakers and practitioners through different collaborative networks across Europe. However, since the URBAN Initiative in the 1990s, the most traditional and relevant initiatives have been the 'urban integrated strategies'. These are plans designed and implemented at the local scale, and applying the integrated strategy in public policies aimed to fulfil the goals proposed by the EU through its cohesion policy at the local scale across Europe. Analyses of the legal framework and documentation for these initiatives at the EU and member state level, as well as in-depth case studies, have provided analytical ideas and information about this growing dimension of the European cohesion policy. The New Urban Agenda (United Nations) and the Urban Agenda for the European Union indicate new urban policies based on the integrated strategy require evidence-policy analyses to ensure better policy design, implementation and the accomplishment of objectives. The current book aims to offer some policy evidence, analytical ideas and research strategies aligned with this goal. We do so by analysing the actual nature of integrated urban strategies promoted by the EU and their added value in terms of improvements in their policy design, implementation and effects at the local level. Have these strategies applied the integrated strategy proposed by the EU? Are there changes pointing to the existence of improvements and learning effects about the integrated strategy across time? Have these strategies improved the living conditions among residents in targeted urban territories.

EU Integrated Urban Initiatives
EU Integrated Urban Initiatives

Author: Clemente J. Navarro Yáñez

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-02-14

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 3031208854

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This open access book presents a unique interdiscplinary analysis of urban projects promoted by the EU from a comparative perspective This book presents cross-sectional and cross-time analyses at the territorial level targeted by these initiatives focusing on the design, theory and impacts of urban projects developed under the framework of initiatives promoted by the European Union. The book includes a new methodology to analyse the design and theory of urban plans (the comparative urban portfolio analysis) and quasi-experimental strategies to perform impact assessment at the neighbourhood level (the territorial target of those initiatives). Although empirical analyses focus on examples in Spain, the resulting analytical and methodological outcomes of these studies can be applied in a broader context to analyse integral urban policies in other countries.

Urban Challenges in Spain and Portugal
Urban Challenges in Spain and Portugal

Author: Nuria Benach

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-16

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1134908970

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Contemporary cities in the Iberian Peninsula have gone through a period of dramatic changes during the last decade. A period of upward economic indicators and massive urbanization was followed by a tremendous financial crash in 2007 that sank Spanish and Portuguese societies into a profound crisis. That period of massive urbanization has been explained by several factors: the availability of financial capital that was speculatively invested in real-estate, a rather sympathetic land use regulation, and the real or perceived social mobility by most social groups which included housing acquisition enabled by unusual credit facilities. In this book we aim to show several different aspects of this process both in Portugal and Spanish cities, problematizing the economic and social consequences of such a model of urban and economic growth and also presenting some policy and governance outcomes that took place along the last decade. This book was published as a special issue of Urban Research and Practice.

Urban Change and Regional Development at the Margins of Europe
Urban Change and Regional Development at the Margins of Europe

Author: Ignazio Vinci

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-07-28

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1000623939

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Since the beginning of the 1990s, regions and urban areas have become a primary target of EU Cohesion Policy. For a number of European cities, especially in the less developed regions, this has resulted in a unique opportunity for the implementation of extensive development projects, as well as delivering innovations in urban policy and local governance. Through the detailed observation of planning processes which took place in four European cities – Porto (PT), Malaga (ES), Palermo (IT), and Thessaloniki (EL) – this book explores the different ways that EU intervention can affect the policy process locally, from the regeneration of decayed neighbourhoods and the creation of key services for improving the quality of life, to the establishment of new governance relations and increasing the institutional capacity in local government. The book also provides a critical reflection on the impact of EU urban policy in reducing regional disparities and the extent to which Cohesion Policy has helped cities to open new pathways for local development. With a special focus on the EU’s marginal regions, this book is a guide to understanding how EU policy has affected urban change and local development across Europe. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Urban Research & Practice.

Urban Europe
Urban Europe

Author: Mariana M. Koceva

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9789279601408

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Statistical information is an important tool for analysing changing patterns of urban development and the impact that policy decisions have on life in our cities, towns and suburbs. Urban Europe - statistics on cities, towns and suburbs provides detailed information for a number of territorial typologies that can be used to paint a picture of urban developments and urban life in the EU Member States, as well as EFTA and candidate countries. Each chapter presents statistical information in the form of maps, tables and figures, accompanied by a description of the policy context and a set of main findings. The publication is broken down into two parts : the first treats topics under the heading of city and urban developments, while the second focuses on the people in cities and the lives they lead. Overall there are 12 main chapters, covering : the urban paradox, patterns of urban and city developments, the dominance of capital cities, smart cities, green cities, tourism and culture in cities, living in cities, working in cities, housing in cities, foreign-born persons in cities, poverty and social exclusion in cities, as well as satisfaction and the quality of life in cities.

Exploring the Effect of Urban Structure on Individual Well-Being
Exploring the Effect of Urban Structure on Individual Well-Being

Author: Zachary Brown

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 35

ISBN-13:

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Abstract: Building on the OECD's Better Life Initiative and new work using geospatial analysis, this paper investigates how reported life satisfaction relates to some of the urban structure indicators. To this end, it merges OECD household survey data with urban structure data from OECD's Metropolitan Database, which includes a number of city-level indicators such as population and road density, as well as localised measures of land-use. The merged data permit analysis for five countries: France, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The findings from this analysis provide some evidence of a trade-off between home size and distance to the city centre, although the statistical power of this effect is relatively weak. Interestingly, regression analysis suggests that overall city-level compactness has a clear negative relationship with life satisfaction, regardless of whether individuals live in the urban core or in peri-urban areas. Land-use fragmentation is also found to have a negative relationship with individuals' life satisfaction. These general patterns are for the most part robust to various statistical tests. They also hold when econometric analysis is conducted at the country level. Residents of cities with greater levels of centralisation - i.e. a greater share of the population living in the city centre - exhibit measurably lower levels of life satisfaction. A naïve interpretation of this result would suggest that anti-sprawl policies do not in fact improve overall welfare. This study does not support this conclusion. It does, however, give cause for consideration before accepting 'win-win' arguments for 'smart growth, ' often brought forward to support increasingly concentrated, high-density development. The evidence presented here suggests that such policies are not without their welfare trade-offs, and that there will be winners and losers from their implementation. While high-density policies can clearly make a positive contribution to reducing local and global environmental externalities, many of these benefits are deferred and may largely accrue to future generations. A key general lesson from this study is that compensation of the losers may improve the equity effects of these policies, as well as prove more expeditious from a political economy perspective. One of the simplest approaches to compensation would be to balance pecuniary incentives for smart growth, such as higher development taxes or fees, with compensatory policies, such as subsidies or tax or fee offsets in other domains. The main policy conclusion from this study is that smart growth policies should include distributional analysis and recommendations for addressing concerns about inequalities flowing from the scoping and implementation of policies

Building Primary Care in a Changing Europe
Building Primary Care in a Changing Europe

Author: Dionne S. Kringos

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789289050319

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For many citizens primary health care is the first point of contact with their health care system, where most of their health needs are satisfied but also acting as the gate to the rest of the system. In that respect primary care plays a crucial role in how patients value health systems as responsive to their needs and expectations. This volume analyses the way how primary are is organized and delivered across European countries, looking at governance, financing and workforce aspects and the breadth of the service profiles. It describes wide national variations in terms of accessibility, continuity and coordination. Relating these differences to health system outcomes the authors suggest some priority areas for reducing the gap between the ideal and current realities.