Sustainable Development Targets and Local Participation in Minor Deprived Communities

This book is a specific deliverable of C27 Cost Action "Sustainable Development Policies for Minor Deprived Urban Communities". COST is an intergovernmental framework for European Cooperation in Science and Technology, allowing the coordination of nationally-funded research on a European level. The goal of COST is to ensure that Europe holds a strong position in the field of scientific and technical research for peaceful purposes, by increasing European cooperation and interaction in this field. This research initiative makes it possible for the various national facilities, institutes, universities and private industry to work jointly on a wide range of Research and Development (R&D) activities. According to the Memorandum of Understanding (Sept 2006), C 27 Action tackles the problem of Minor Deprived Communities protection, rehabilitation and gear to sustainable development. The Action is aware of regional policy goals in the European Union to economic and social cohesion and, therefore, to avoid deprivation phenomena and that European rural areas still contain a huge part of the Union's population. The main objective of the Action is to explore, assess and improve the different policy options open to small, deprived, communities, geared to sustainable development. The Action is targeted to single out and assess the sustainability of successful development policies either theoretical or already implemented elsewhere. The methodology proposed wants to be both highly scientific and pragmatic. In order to offset lacks in technical expertise, the Action aims at reviewing successful stories and assessing their transferability. The support of existing private institutions is deemed essential. Where these are missing, the action professes to set them up and provide basic training so us to make them useful in the roles they are supposed to perform. This book covers a year of work of the C27 group: two conferences, one in Prague, Czech Republic, on 28 September 2007 and one in Sundsvall, Sweden, on 14 March 2008, and a workshop for young researchers held in Brescia, Italy, on 29 and 30 October 2008, mainly dedicated to setting up the database. The Prague conference mainly concerned itself with the measures of urban containment or sustainable development versus rural areas while Sundsvall examined policies of local participation in sustainable development; crucial matters not only for C27 Action1 but also for scientific knowledge in general and for adopting a practical approach to urban policies and regional planning.