FOCI - Future Orientation for Cities

Theme
Cities and Urban Agglomerations: their functionality and development opportunities for European competitiveness and cohesion.

Thematic scope
Cities and urban development are a focal point of current territorial development policy. Against the background of the Lisbon Agenda’s aim of growth and jobs, cities are seen as the main potential motors for the achievement of the set goals, which was also acknowledged in EU Cohesion policy documents for 2007 – 2013, including the Community Strategic Guidelines, as well as the Territorial Agenda and the “Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities”, complementing the Territorial Agenda by focusing on the issue of sustainable cities.
This project shall thus analyse the current state, trends and development perspectives for the largest cities and urban agglomerations within the European territory. It shall identify the driving forces of urban development which are the most relevant for understanding urban evolutions and offer scenarios for the development of Europe’s cities leading to alternative policy options.

Please read more about the main research areas and main results envisaged on the next page.

Lead Partner
Free University of Brussels – IGEAT, Brussels (Belgium).
Detailed information on the contracted project team can be found under Transnational Project Groups

Sounding Board
Karl Peter Schön, Germany
Wiktor Szydarowski, Sweden

Budget: € 998 888,00

Project’s lifetime: September 2008 – September 2010

Delivery of Reports
Inception Report: 11 November 2008
Interim Report: 30 April 2009
Draft Final Report: 30 September 2010
Final Report: 15 December 2010

More information
Please contact the Project Expert at the ESPON Coordination Unit:
René VAN DER LECQ, e-mail: rene.vanderlecq@espon.eu