Abstract:

After the Rio Summit (1992), the European Conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns -held in Aalborg in May 1994- ended with the drawing up of the Aalborg Charter, a document signed by 80 European local administrations. This Charter set out the main principles of sustainable urban management through the Local Agenda 21 programme, with public-private agreement and citizens' participation as key principles.

The work methodology of the Local Agenda 21 is based on the drawing up of several indicators on economic, social and environmental aspects. There are increasingly more municipalities in Europe implementing Local Agendas 21 and developing them through analysis, action plan and monitoring stages. This essay studies the implementation in Spain of two of the most important issues addressed in Local Agendas 21: sustainable mobility and the recovery of degraded urban areas.