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E-book Burgas : Planning a Black Sea Smart City
With the signing in 2016 of the Amsterdam Pact1, the EU Member States committed to an Urban Agenda designed to encourage and promote integrated planning and development in pursuit of a more sustainable and equitable settlement pattern. The Urban Agenda acknowledges the significant role that cities have played in Europe’s development following the industrial revolution. It also recognises the even more important part they must now play in the wake of de-industrialisation, the emergence and ubiquity of smart technologies, and the enormous challenges posed by climate change. Moreover, as social media increasingly highlights the economic opportunities afforded by globalisation, many European cities are now faced with demographic instability occasioned in the main by Europe’s ageing population and declining birth rates, but often exacerbated by large inflows of economic migrants from Africa and elsewhere, with all of the attendant problems of assimilation and integration for the newcomers.Europe’s cities have come to challenge the traditional notion of spatial hierarchies and core/periphery regions, because of EU integration and its polycentric development strategy. Given the prevailing settlement pattern, this promotes the more equitable possibility of development of multiple dynamic growth zones across Europe. The result is a new European system of cities that is highly heterogeneous, featuring the established and conventional roles of the EU’s 28 capitals, as well as a larger range of diverse cities seeking to exploit their comparative advantages with “best-fit” offerings that are perceived to be more appropriate and competitive for such a purpose. This is the backdrop to Burgas’ , “smart city” aspirations. The wetlands cover an area of some 95 km2 (about 20% of the municipality’s land area), of which almost a third is protected (either declared or proposed) because of its impressive biodiversity and as a sanctuary for endangered species of birds, fish and mammals. They are also traversed by Via Pontika, one of the main migratory routes for European birds. There is no other large municipality in Bulgaria with so great a proportion of protected area within its territory, which from an economic development perspective creates both problems and opportunities for the municipality.
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