Guiding document for urban development in Europe: The New Leipzig Charter

The charter focuses on the common good and local authorities that are able to act. This is also reflected in the title “The transformative power of cities for the common good”. The charter provides a strategic compass by which communities, Cities and metropolises of all EU member states can host.

The New Leipzig Charter(link is external)refers to the well-known sustainability triangle and advocates a socially just (just), green (green) and economically productive (productive) city. To enable European municipalities to achieve these three closely related dimensions, the document provides them with five key principles:

• Orientation towards the common good, i.e. a sufficient supply of infrastructures, services of general interest and affordable housing for all people;
• integrated approach and work between individual departments and across different levels;
• Participation and co-creation in the sense of a real co-creation of the entire urban society in urban development projects;
• Multi-level cooperation (multi-level governance) of all political-administrative levels as well as all social actors including civil society and the private sector;
• as well as a location-based approach, which is based on local requirements and finds tailor-made solutions.

It focuses on the district as well as the city as a whole and the urban region (functional area) as fields of action. In the case of the latter (urban region / surrounding area / functional areas) the New Leipzig Charter shows overlaps with its spatial “twin document”, the Territorial Agenda 2030 (link is external)which was adopted a day later. While the charter focuses on urban development, the focus of the agenda, which bears the title “A future for all places”, is on balanced spatial development in Europe.

EU Regional Development Fund