When it comes to cosmopolitan urbanity all eyes are on the metropolises, the large cities. There are only a few examples that teach us anything about how small communities deal with issues of migration and integration. In order to understand the differences between a metropolis and smaller towns that have little diversity the authors interviewed mayors and administrations in eight small towns in the German federal state of Brandenburg.

“It is neither balcony cultivation nor green roofs that will save the planet, but rather courage and multi-centrality between villages” – Anna Chavepayre

The French-Swedish architect Anna Chavepayre on the value of rural identity in architecture and planning and how linking villages can create sustainability. Interview by Anna-Maria Pershagen

A call for a territorial dimension of the Green Deal for cities, towns, villages, and regions: Place-oriented strategies towards Reserves of Resilience are discussed as important contribution to overall transformation to sustainability. The need to foster Territorial Creativity for a new Habitat Vision is put forward to innovate concepts and tools of urbanism and to strengthen action-oriented research.

Finding perspectives for marginal areas is a highly relevant contemporary issue in Italy. The B4R work in the Sicani Mountains in Sicily offers a framework for the region’s development and manages to describe a path to activate “reserves of resilience” for new sustainable lifestyles.

Imagine the future is not in the city, but instead in rural areas, where radical changes are taking place. Imagine the countryside could be more futuristic than any big or smart city. This is what Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch architect and urbanist, states in the current exhibition for the Guggenheim Museum.

Video interview: Christoph Hupfer – Professor for Mobility Planning at Hochschule Karlsruhe and Ute Meyer – urbanes.land –  about the obstacles of transforming mobility patterns in urbanized territories and how integrating processes of land-use and transport planning can benefit the greater agenda of emission-reduced and social-equitable settlements. 

Tom Holbrook, director of 5th Studio Architecture and Urbanism, London, on future planning options for UKs Fast Growth Cities and the challenges to the proposition of sustainable development.