Metropolitan fringes Controlling urbanisation and achieving sustainable development in fringe zones bordering on the metropolitan areas: evaluation of practices and innovative proposals

Download the results of the first phase of theme 1 (".pdf" format)

Steered by the Kommunaldverband Ruhrgebiet and Planungsgemeinschaft Rheinpfalz

Keeping urbanisation under control in peri-urban areas requires the open spaces to be protected and enhanced effectively, and the conditions for managing it to be created or maintained. The various metropolitan areas have defined strategies which are worth comparing. They have designed approaches and tools relating to regulations, taxation, procedures, partnerships or land management:

legal protection of the natural heritage (natural reserves, planning documents);
regeneration of derelict land (industrial or waste land, old quarries);
measures for revitalising the agricultural economy in the sectors in which it has become fragile;
new uses of land or building (leisure, tourism, etc.);
coordinated management of natural and cultural heritage;
taking into account environmental problems when building infrastructures.
prise en compte des problématiques environnementales dans l’insertion des infrastructures.

By comparing the problems faced in the open spaces in the various study sectors, the project enables the processes involved and their similarities and differences to be better understood and to be anticipated. The project makes it possible to record the approaches and the tools as they are used on the ground, so as to assess the conditions in which they are effective, and to study to what extent they can be transferred so as to serve as models or references for new policies.

June 16 and 17, 1999 in Essen : first meeting of the technical theme group.
September 28 and 29, 1999 in the Hague : second meeting.
March 8 and 9, 2001 in Mannheim : next meeting