SUSTAINABLE & RESILIENT Urban-Rural Partnerships

@URP2020   |    #URP2020

Aim & Topics

Regions are of critical importance to achieve the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda including the Sustainable Development Goals and the HABITAT III objectives. The traditional distinction between urban and rural is imprecise and obviously shapes conflicts hindering constructive approaches. Knowledge and policies can support sustainable and resilient urban-rural partnerships at various spatial levels for stronger regions. Innovative and comprehensive perspectives on common targets are needed together with strategies to put them into practice. It is important to understand the complexly structured continuum in-between the urban and the rural and unleash synergies by close interaction and mutual support.

This perspective unfurls particular relevance concerning sustainable and resilient development pathways, including topics such as:

supporting equity in living conditions while accepting local particularities;

establishing multi-level, multi-actor and multi-sectoral regional governance approaches to mediate conflicting positions, trade-offs, dilemmas or paradoxes;

improving integrated land-use management, social and technological infrastructures and mobility services to enable proper living conditions and quality of life;

designing new sociotechnical approaches towards robust regional systems coping with climate change, extreme events, disruptive changes and uncertainties;

building the regional circular economy, enhancing resource efficiency based on a deeper understanding of the urban-rural metabolism;

exploiting digitalization strategies as catalyst and enabler of innovative development strategies irrespective of the location.

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