Urban planning for sustainable city regions
Since the fall of communism, central and eastern Europe have seen suburban sprawl disfigure the countryside and introduce several challenges associated with metropolitan expansion. This growth is taking place without thought for true urban planning and sustainable development. The EU-funded MUGPCEE project examined policymaking in urban growth for the region. It exploited cutting-edge research and technology in urban-growth modelling for post-socialist cities and explored different future scenarios. In collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London in the United Kingdom, MUGPCEE identified policies that manage urban expansion in metropolitan areas, incorporating sustainable development into the equation. In addition, the project reviewed all available publications on the subject and identified the most appropriate modelling system (namely Metronamica) to map suburban expansion. To achieve its aims, the project used the area of west London as a case study, modelling its urban growth in 20-year increments throughout the last century. This model was then used to map expansion in Prague, the Czech Republic, since the fall of the iron curtain. The MUGPCEE results have helped the team to analyse urban development in light of market-based principles and economies, with a strong focus on suburban expansion. The project's illuminating findings have appeared in several journals and books, as well as numerous seminars and conferences from Hamburg, Germany to Tokyo, Japan. The methods and databases developed during this project will be valuable in undertaking similar studies related to urban and suburban expansion.
