Sustainable Urban Development in the European Territorial Cohesion Agenda: Polis XXI Policy, Portugal

This paper reflects on sustainable urban development policies in Europe and their reflections in Portugal. Focusing on Portuguese Polis XXI Policy, an instrument that follows recent orientations of territorial and urban policy in Europe, it seeks to demonstrate that this is an innovative and multidimensional instrument of sustainable urban development, also capable of stimulating interactive processes of coordination and aggregation of actors around common objectives and projects (governance arrangements), noting that spatial planning policies are tending towards institutionalization, cooperation and territorial cohesion. Based on the theoretical reflections about the evolution of European spatial policy and urban policy documents, the methodology applied in this research seeks to interpret its rationale, objectives and guidelines. These inform the theoretical reflections on returning power to the cities and regions. Thus, from a selection of experiences of the implementation of the Polis XXI Policy in Portugal, we seek to find out what are the effects and which aspects are crucial for knowledge transfers, for institutional collaboration experiences, and reinforcing cohesion in other regions and cities and also identify future challenges for regional policy instruments which impact urban areas.