News for topic Urban-planning

How do cities know if their mobility plans really work? On 7 October, the UBC Sustainable Cities Commission and the Interreg Baltic Sea Region SUMPs for BSR project brought this question to centre stage in a UBC TALKS webinar. The discussion focused on Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) as a hands-on tool—helping cities measure progress, engage people, and move faster toward sustainable mobility.

On 1–3 October 2025, over 70 urban leaders, climate experts, and changemakers gathered in Malmö, Sweden, for the annual Union of the Baltic Cities Sustainable Cities Commission meeting. Under the theme “Creating Climate-Proof and Nature-Positive Cities Together,” the event became a powerful platform for cities across the Baltic Sea Region to collaborate on urgent environmental challenges – and the solutions needed to meet them.

Whether you’re just starting your SUMP journey or looking to sharpen your skills, this programme offers practical tools, peer learning, and expert insights to help you make a real impact. Each module includes:

The national award was given to the City of Greifswald recognising the city's outstanding progress in the area of resilient urban development, particularly in Schönwalde I and II districts. Within the framework of the urban development funding programs Greifswald has focused specifically on the sustainable improvement of infrastructure and the creation of climate-friendly living spaces.

Due to climate change, extreme weather events like droughts, heavy rainfall, and heatwaves are becoming more frequent across the Baltic Sea Region. As these impacts intensify, cities face growing pressure to adapt and prepare. In response, the city of Turku is strengthening its climate resilience through the RESIST project.

The event opened with remarks from Anders Ekman, a local politician actively engaged in mobility issues in Gävle. He shared experiences of the city working towards reaching the ambitious climate goals, emphasising the importance of influencing the travel choices made by citizens. Like in many other cities, in Gävle, transport emissions and car dependency remain the key barriers to reaching climate goals. 

Our annual report is here: we have compiled major highlights from the activities of our Sustainable Cities Commission and the UBC member cities over 2024. The report is aligned with the core topics of UBC SAP 2030: water, mobility, energy, resource-efficiency, and biodiversity.

The Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region is the main event for the stakeholders of our area to meet, exchange, network, and plan further activities. This year’s 15th Forum took place in Visby on 29-31 October 2024 and attracted 650 participants at the venue – not to mention the online audience of the livestreams!

This seminar was titled “Sustainable transformation for resilient coastal city”, focusing on three areas of the hosting city of Gdańsk: two parts of the harbour zone and the area next to the football arena built for UEFA Euro 2012. The aim of the seminar was to provide new functional visions for these areas, prepared by the teams of international experts from UBC member cities in line with the hosting city’s strategic objectives.

In the Baltic Sea region, many cities have the goal of becoming carbon neutral. This requires a harmonized approach to strategic urban planning: climate, energy, urban development and mobility plans need to be in line, striving towards the same vision to reach goals. Traditional transport planning needs to be replaced by sustainable urban mobility planning aiming at accessibility and integrated development of all modes.

Our Sustainable Cities Commission co-created the spring 2024 edition of the Baltic Cities Bulletin under the topic "Towards green and just transition"!

There's significant potential in incorporating the regular use of temporary experiments into mobility planning.