ABSTRACT
The emerging interest in urban areas in general and in integrated urban development in particular is the result of a long policy development process. Following earlier setbacks, the end of the last decade brought about some real progress, such as the acceptance of the concept of integrated development with integrated territorial investment (ITI) and community-led local development (CLLD) as tools to achieve it. Under the new regulation, the compulsory urban dimension was ideally meant to be a multi-level governance structure in which a national/regional-level policy framework would stimulate and regulate integrated interventions in selected cities. The outcome of the above simulation of the relative financial significance of the Article 7 regulation shows huge differences in the amount of money allocated, which largely explains the differences in the reactions of countries. Integrated urban development is not only one of the territorial aims of Cohesion Policy; neither does it refer only to the 'urban' areas as opposed to 'rural' and 'remote' areas.
