Addressing Europe's Urban Challenges: Lessons from the EU URBAN Community Initiative

Urban issues have moved up the European Union's policy agenda over the past 10 years. Since the launch of the URBAN I Community Initiative (CI) in 1994, urban issues within regional policy have increasingly featured in EU policy documents. This paper presents the findings of the ex-post evaluation of the URBAN CI that was implemented from 1994 to 1999, funded by the European Commission. It shows that while URBAN-style area-based initiatives were already taking place in some member-states, in the majority of countries the URBAN CI presented an innovative way of addressing area-based urban challenges, effectively leading the way for a sea-change in thinking on urban regeneration in many member-states, both in terms of content and process. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications of the findings for addressing urban deprivation through area-based initiatives.