Urban sustainable development needs to secure basic human needs

Urban sustainable development (USD) plans and policies cover a wide range of issues, such as biodiversity protection, transportation, or poverty reduction. Yet, it is unclear what the USD policy preferences of residents are. Considering this, the research group Spatial Development and Urban Policy led by Prof. Dr. David Kaufmann, examined and compared residents’ USD preferences with the priorities set out in existing USD policy plans. The preferences of 5,800 urban residents in Antwerp, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Lisbon, Manchester, Marseille, Milan, and Valencia were analyzed through the application of survey experiments, while the existing USD priorities in the eight cities were examined through a analysis of their 166 existing USD policy plans.

The findings indicate an on average high acceptance of USD, but with significant democratic discrepancies: while USD policy plans predominantly prioritize issues, such as biodiversity, education, and transportation, residents expressed preferences for issues linked to essential and everyday needs, such as cost of living, public health, and poverty alleviation. These findings are largely stable across the eight European cities.

It can be shown that cities pursue ambitious strategies relating to long-term and ecologically focused USD policy issues, yet that USD policy-making should stress the importance of just sustainability transformations, a process that is aims to pursue ambitious SD interventions while alleviating or at least not widening socio-economic inequalities.