Publications
The Guidebooks
During the period 2003-2005 the project organised best practice conferences in all 20 participating
cities addressing all ten topics as well as the integration between the topics, and sustainability strategies
used in the participating cities. The discussions and study visits at the conferences inspired a series of
guidebooks on the selected topics to be used for city administrations as well as researchers and teachers
at universities dealing with sustainable urban development. These are herewith offered to the readers
The guidebooks are thus not proceedings of the conferences, even if several of the participants have
contributed. The ten guidebooks were planned later and editors with editorial teams recruited. Authors
include both practitioners from cities and researchers from universities. The production has been done
during 2006 and 2007.
The main topic of the guidebooks is to report on sustainability strategies used and
evaluate these strategies, and possibly suggest new strategies for sustainable development on the local level.
The books also contain a number of detailed descriptions of how to work with city development in practice as
well as reports more of research character. The format of the guidebooks is about 50 pages in A4
format and some 12 chapters.
The City Status Reports
The City Status Reports in the BUUF project address ten key areas of city management, chosen at the outset of
the project. These were later grouped in three areas of management, while integration was kept as a separate
topic.
Material flows
1. Water
2. Energy
3. Waste
Urban space
4. Traffic and transport
5. Green structures
6. Built structures, especially brown fields
Socio-economy
7. Education and infornation
8. Economic development
9. Urban-rural cooperation
Integration
10. Integration of management
The areas were all discussed by the BUUF Scientific Advisory Council, which developed indicators for each of them. These indicators were later treated by the UBC Commission for the environment into a table, a short hand, for reporting indicator values. The indicator, the tables and the comments from the SAC are all found in the BUUF indicator book.
The City Status Reports were collected in the BUUF project at three occasions, 2004, 2005 and 2006. The reports for each of the ten key areas, contain the following:
1. A description of the situation (collected 2004)
2. Basis indicator data (collected 2005)
3. Updating of indicator data.
Comments on the choice of indicators. (2006)
The reports are edited for each area (water, energy etc) separately consisting of about 25 pages. The status descriptions consist of one page, with occasional additional pages for data diagrams etc, per city. The basic indicator data is collected in a table (one page) including all cities.
The Scientific Advisory Council members are asked to write benchmarking statements on these reports from the cities. The collected reports and benchmarking statements will be collected in a City status book from the BUUF project.
The cities
The cities have been organised in five groups according to character to make comparisons more meaningful. In each group there are representative from both “East” and “West”. The list of cities then becomes as follows:
Group 1. Large port cities
1. Hamburg, Germany
2. Kaliningrad, Russia
3. Novgorod, Russia
4. Turku/Åbo, Finland
Group 2. Fairly large inland cities, metropolis issues
5. Lodz, Poland
6. Nacka, Sweden (close to Stockholm)
7. Minsk, Belarus
8. Örebro Sweden
Group 3. Medium sized inland university cities
9. Uppsala, Sweden
10. Tartu, Estonia
11. Jelgava, Latvia
12. Kaunas, Lithuania
Group 4. Small inland/coastal cities under economic restructuring
13. Livani, Latvia
14 Hällefors, Sweden
15. Norrtälje, Sweden
16. Sopot, Poland
Group 5. Small municipalities, ecovillage character
17. Enköping, Sweden
18. Tukums, Latvia
19. Kosakowo, Poland
20. Hågaby, Sweden
