Project Details
Financing body
Commission of the European Communities
Description
Problems to be solved:
Urban growth usually happens in contradictory ways to the concept of sustainable settlement development. Spatially diffused and functionally segregated settlement structures tend to cause growth in traffic volumes as well as increased pressures on the environment. Measures to promote sustainable transport modes in isolation are stultified by these trends, still dominating settlement planning concepts and their implementation.
The resources to be conserved for future generations - land (urban sprawl), energy sources (fossil fuels), the environment, as well as human resources (health, quality of life) - are particularly jeopardised.
Scientific objectives
To overcome the problems of urban development mentioned, requires the consistent integration and implementation of specific, often already tested individual solutions. Instead of adjusting solutions to structures, this project aims at creating optimal structures, in which optimal solutions can be implemented.
The overall goal of the project is, hence, to develop settlement patterns for sustainable cities (ECOCITIES), emphasising the implications for an environmentally compatible transport system.
Necessary conditions of sustainability to be operationalised are compactness - selection of suitable sites - and a balanced mix of land uses.
To improve the structures in grown cities will require a very long process confronted with many barriers, e.g. car-minded life styles. Therefore this project aims at creating examples for an ecological sustainable development in new settlements or quarters of towns (sustainable 'cities of tomorrow') to shift the existing demand for new buildings from urban sprawl to a sustainable development with less land use and reduced consumption of energy and resources.
A concept for a sustainable model settlement will be developed, in co-operation with the respective local community, for one specific site in each of six participating countries of the project.
Urban growth usually happens in contradictory ways to the concept of sustainable settlement development. Spatially diffused and functionally segregated settlement structures tend to cause growth in traffic volumes as well as increased pressures on the environment. Measures to promote sustainable transport modes in isolation are stultified by these trends, still dominating settlement planning concepts and their implementation.
The resources to be conserved for future generations - land (urban sprawl), energy sources (fossil fuels), the environment, as well as human resources (health, quality of life) - are particularly jeopardised.
Scientific objectives
To overcome the problems of urban development mentioned, requires the consistent integration and implementation of specific, often already tested individual solutions. Instead of adjusting solutions to structures, this project aims at creating optimal structures, in which optimal solutions can be implemented.
The overall goal of the project is, hence, to develop settlement patterns for sustainable cities (ECOCITIES), emphasising the implications for an environmentally compatible transport system.
Necessary conditions of sustainability to be operationalised are compactness - selection of suitable sites - and a balanced mix of land uses.
To improve the structures in grown cities will require a very long process confronted with many barriers, e.g. car-minded life styles. Therefore this project aims at creating examples for an ecological sustainable development in new settlements or quarters of towns (sustainable 'cities of tomorrow') to shift the existing demand for new buildings from urban sprawl to a sustainable development with less land use and reduced consumption of energy and resources.
A concept for a sustainable model settlement will be developed, in co-operation with the respective local community, for one specific site in each of six participating countries of the project.
| Status | Finished |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 1/02/02 → 1/02/05 |
| Links | http://www.ecocityprojects.net |
Austrian Classification of Fields of Science and Technology (OEFOS)
- 507019 Urban development planning
- 507009 Regional planning
- 201212 Urban design
- 201213 Housing
- 507025 Transport planning
- 201