Railway station districts enhancing urban development
URBAN Intergroup together with the regional authorities of Picardie and Flanders organized today at the European Parliament the seminar “Railway station districts enhancing urban development in mid-sized cities”.
The seminar aimed at highlighting railway areas as a specific aspect of urban planning. In his introduction, Lambert van Niesterlooj, Vice-president of the URBAN Intergroup, emphasized the very important place of urban dimension in the legislative package concerning cohesion policy after 2013, and introduced the new instrument – Connecting Europe Facility, which can be useful for infrastructure development. Representatives of the city of Breda, the city of Leuvenand the Picardie region presented their good experiences of transformation of abandoned and neglected railway areas into the heart of the city. All stressed the importance of integrated approach and partnership of all the actors involved in the project. The second part of the meeting focused on the discussion about the urban dimension in cohesion policy after 2013.
The future of urban development in the spotlight
URBAN partner organisations debated at the European Parliament with MEPs and representatives of the European Commission about the future of urban development in Europe and the cohesion policy support for it in the new programming period after 2013.
Two presentations by the European Commission about the recently published report “Cities of tomorrow” and about the urban elements in the proposed regulations for cohesion policy 2014-2020 were followed by a long questions and answers session with the European Commission. The participants requested among other things some clarification about the new territorial instruments proposed in the new regulations for cohesion policy, about the earmarking of some of the ERDR allocation for integrated urban development and in more general, about the Commission’s vision for desired future European city model.
The meeting was organised on the 6th of December 2011 by the URBAN Intergroup and took place at the European Parliament.
