FOCI - Future Orientation for Cities

Main research areas

• The relation between the functionality of cities and their competitiveness, their socio-economic and environmental situation as well as their urban quality.
• The trends of and opportunities for European cities in terms of competitiveness, social cohesion and environment, contributing to the description of the realities of European cities and to the understanding of the driving forces of urban development in the next 15 – 20 years.
• The relation of cities to their hinterland, especially their role as growth poles / motors, identifying the factors determining the strength of ties between metropolis and the region and their affect on competitiveness of these systems.
• Analysis of existing and identification of potential « polycentric » inter-city cooperation for increasing competitiveness and service provision, confronting the concept of polycentricity with the reality of networks at different scales.

The above mentioned research areas are examined on three different scales – the intra-urban, the regional and the supra-regional and European scale with its networks of cities by making use of the most recent results of the Urban Audit.
 

Main results envisaged

• Data input to the ESPON Database.
• Indicators offering additional information on the functional specification of FUA/LUZ and new complex indicators of cities´ development opportunities, competitiveness, socio-economic and environmental situation.
• Typologies of the urban system of Europe according to the functional specialisation of the cities and their competitiveness, including the possibilities of enhancing the competitiveness through cooperation and the impact of cities in relation to different types of territories.
• Case studies of cooperation opportunities of cities/urban agglomerations to improve competitiveness and cohesion.
• Maps of the European urban system revealing functional strengths and weaknesses, territorial classification and variations of urban functionality, opportunities for competitiveness and cohesion and possibilities for cooperation of cities/urban agglomerations in polycentric zones/clusters.