Abstract
The centrality of cities and urban processes in sustainable development and the green transition has been recognized by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the New Urban Agenda and the Green Deal. In this context, this paper aims to explore the conceptualizations of cities that have received attention, such as “inclusive city”, “knowledge city”, “low carbon city”, “resilient city”, “smart city”, and “sustainable city”. Since measuring progress through the reaching of sustainable development in contemporary cities is a current and relevant issue, the paper reflects on both theory and practice levels: (i) by developing a conceptualization of current challenges in pursuing urban sustainability; (ii) by discussing available (and/or needed) measurement and assessment tools, such as indicators, to support the construction and evaluation of such sustainable urban policies. In doing so, the research specifically focuses on the European Union’s (EU) framework for urban sustainability, outlined in the Horizon Europe Program for Research and Innovation for 2021–2027. Accordingly, the Strategic Plan 2021–2024 and the work programmes 2023–2024 of “Clusters” and “Missions” are analyzed to understand where we stand towards European challenges in urban sustainability. Moreover, the paper explores indicators provided by different European institutions in order to outline a set of indicators useful for monitoring the city conceptualizations encouraged at the European level.
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Gaballo, M., Mecca, B., Todella, E. (2023). Urban Sustainability Towards European Missions and Challenges: Where Do We Stand?. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2023 Workshops. ICCSA 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14104. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37105-9_24
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