Metroland addresses a pertinent, long-standing and unresolved issue: how demand for urban functions, such as homes, schools, offices, parks and shops and its associated infrastructure (built environment) can be accommodated without unduly harming ecosystem functions such as habitats, soil, air and water quality (natural environment). Attention to this matter is necessary because urbanisation in Europe has by most measures occurred unsustainably over the past few decades, resulting in over one million hectares of land being ‘taken’ for urban use between 2000 and 2018 alone. Urbanisation in Europe significantly outstrips population development, far exceeds natural carrying capacity, and, once ‘taken’, very little ‘artificialised’ land is restored to natural or agricultural uses. At the same time, the European Union has set a goal of No Net Land Take (NNLT) by 2050, which has been given greater urgency and legal weight by the recently enacted Soil Monitoring Law. Achieving NNLT creates a unique challenge for urban and strategic spatial planning.

Metropolitan areas are appropriate locations for exploring this challenge, as they are the places where urban development pressures are arguably the greatest and, consequently, where new sustainable practices can have the most impact. Metropolitan areas are moreover interesting due to their territorial complexity and the fact that they rarely have the governance capacity or planning instruments needed to implement strategic and spatial policies themselves. The multiplicity of urban and metropolitan constraints necessitates intricate collaboration arrangements with higher and lower tiers of government, as well as with myriad private actors and civil society. It requires alliances with other policy sectors and, perhaps most of all, tools to ensure commitment to these goals over time. Achieving NNLT therefore presents a distinctive challenge for metropolitan governance. 
 

Policy and research questions  

The project addresses the following policy questions:  

1. What is the current land use in the stakeholder metropolitan regions? What are the development trends of the past two to three decades, including the overall demand for land take and the structure of the land taken in terms of soil sealing ratio and patterns?
2. What is the anticipated future land use in the metropolitan regions based on available datasets and qualitative local knowledge including a ‘business as usual’ scenario without uptake of No Net Land Take (NNLT) policies? To what extent are these scenarios deemed desirable by the stakeholders? What potential impacts could these developments have on non-metropolitan and agricultural areas, particularly regarding land take of fertile soils?
3. How do the urban planning systems within the stakeholder areas function? To what extent are they able to manage land use and contribute to EU environmental objectives in their respective areas, in particular, minimising urban sprawl and enhancing ecosystem services?
4. How does metropolitan governance within the stakeholder areas function, particularly with respect to resolving collective-action problems? To what extent can metropolitan governance contribute to strategic spatial planning towards achieving higher-level objectives set by the EU and national initiatives?
5. Which urban planning interventions and governance strategies are most promising for achieving a desirable balance between accommodating the demand for urban functions (built environment) and preserving the quality of ecosystem functions (natural environment)? How can the stakeholders inspire and learn from one another in this regard?
    

Geographical coverage 

This project encompasses the metropolitan areas of the seven stakeholder cities Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Brussels-capital region, Lille (MEL), Riga and Torino.  

More information   

Lead partner: University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) 

Joint Partners: Urbanex (Croatia), Politecnico di Torino (POLITO) (Italy), TU Wien (Austria) , University of Latvia (Latvia), Charles University (Czechia), Demaz (France) and UTD Consulting (Belgium)  

Contact: 

Paola Marinovic (Research and Policy Manager) 

Laura Dimitriu (Administration and Contract Manager)