What is the secret behind successful and competitive cities and regions? What makes some places more attractive than others? It is the combination of people who feel happy and thrive in their living environment and a city that takes care of the citizens.


“Planning Together for Better Quality of Life – Guide for Integrated Management of Urban Rural Interaction” is one of the final outputs of the NEW BRIDGES project promoting a more integrated approach to regional planning. This guide functions as an inspiration to anyone interested in striving for a more open, inclusive and interactive planning culture. It can be used in different ways; either as a guide to establishing city-regional co-operation and applying the quality of life approach to regional planning from scratch or it can be used to help improve existing practises by rendering co-operation structures more effective.

The guide has been divided in two parts. First part will introduce the Integrated Management System model that is a useful tool facilitating the integration of the decision making and planning processes of neighbouring municipalities. The IMS model will be presented step by step: How to get started with the common planning processes; how to involve necessary actors and finally how to implement the plan successfully. The case examples drawn from the partners involved in the NEW BRIDGES project provide practical illustrations of how the different steps of the IMS process have been carried out by various city-regions in the Baltic Sea region. The guide is based on the experiences and work done in the NEW BRIDGES partner city-regions throughout the project.

In the project the focus has been on three elements of the quality of life within urban-rural interaction: accessibility and mobility, the provision of services and residential preferences. This guide concentrates on strengthening the management of these elements as a part of a broader approach in spatial planning. Related to each step of the IMS model the guide will define the basic framework for and the most important concepts in coherent city-regional planning. It will also, briefly, outline the basic policy goals and strategies at different levels in this field.

The second part of the guide will provide relevant policy recommendations for three different levels of spatial planning with a view to the promotion of a more coherent and sustainable Baltic Sea Region.

Planning Together for Better Quality of Life - Guide for Integrated Management of Urban Rural Interaction is now available in English. The guide will be later published also in several Baltic Sea Region languages: Estonia, Finnish, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish.

For more information please visit www.urbanrural.net.