Despite the fact that cities comprise a relatively small portion of European territory, the majority of the population lives in urban areas. Cities, towns, and suburbs now house about 359 million people, accounting for 72 percent of the total EU population (according to the Eurostat classification).

As cities want more and more room, they look for accessible land, which is usually agricultural or natural. This often leads to land use conflicts. As a result, many cities expand in a dispersed, low-density manner — a phenomenon known as urban sprawl, which poses difficulties to sustainable land use and the construction of more compact communities.

The Partnership for Sustainable Use of Land & Nature-Based Solutions recognises that inter-municipal cooperation encompassing coordinated spatial planning within FUAs, has a great potential to promote land sustainability. As a part of the implementation of the Action 5, the Partnership prepared a recommendation document entitled: “Mainstreaming FUA cooperation as a tool to mitigate urban sprawl”.

This guidelines and recommendations document aims to strengthen FUAs by inspiring stakeholders at various levels, including European, national, regional, and local, to build efficient FUA cooperation and implement successful projects, not only in the area of urban sprawl, but also, hopefully, in other thematic areas. FUA cooperation is becoming increasingly important not only for more sustainable land use, but also for climate change mitigation and overall socioeconomic development; thus, the guidelines and recommendations in this document should assist FUAs in developing successfully in a more sustainable manner.

Download the document below.