Recent statistics show that approximately 43% of the EU population lives in small and medium-sized cities between 5,000 and 50,000 inhabitants. Small urban areas play a pivotal role in sustainable urban development and territorial cohesion in Europe and are an important part of the urban-rural continuum.

We chose to tackle this topic in the August Urban Review because of the diversity of small and medium-sized cities (in terms of geography, demographic, socio-economic and governance aspects) and the various socio-economic and environmental opportunities they can provide due to their territorial context and their national policy framework.

Read this month’s newsletter to discover how small and medium-sized cities can contribute significantly to the transformative power of cities as well as how they are, or should be, incorporated in national urban policies nowadays.

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urban mobility, creating systemic change by learning from urban experiments
Urban Voices

Luca Bertolini on… creating systemic change by learning from urban experim...

Luca Bertolini on… creat...

Luca Bertolini on… creating systemic change by learning from urban experiments

Luca Bertolini explains the link between urban mobility experiments and urban sustainable transition, and how urban mobility experiments can teach us about creating systemic change.

Image of Warsaw
Urban Voices

Laura Polverari on… the Key Role of EU Cohesion Policy in Urban Policymaki...

Laura Polverari on… the ...

Laura Polverari on… the Key Role of EU Cohesion Policy in Urban Policymaking

Laura Polverari discusses her research on EU Cohesion Policy, how the current framework works at various levels of government, and new challenges presented by changes to the EU's fiscal rules.

JRC urban
Publications

The JRC’s urban activities and the New Leipzig Charter: Exploring the role...

The JRC’s urban activiti...

The JRC’s urban activities and the New Leipzig Charter: Exploring the role of science for policy post 2020

Investigating the JRC’s potential role in supporting urban policy-making over the next ten years, within the framework for sustainable urban development proposed by the New Leipzig Charter.