ABSTRACT
The concept of sustainable development was initially devised on the global stage in institutions such as the United Nations, at the intersection of economic, environmental and social concerns. Urban professionals exchange references across national boundaries that contribute to making urban development increasingly 'green', while its principles, policies and technologies are more and more 'globalized'. This chapter focuses on the impact of these new trends in Europe in the wake of the 'European Sustainable Cities and Towns' campaign that paved the ground for the 1994 Aalborg Charter, by way of which signatory municipalities committed to setting up local Agendas 21, on a European scale, which requires policy planning and establishing priorities. It investigates how and to what extent the repertoire of sustainable development is applied to the urban environment using a knowledge-based approach and looks at sustainability as both a rhetorical corpus and a principle of action in order to better understand how sustainability has brought about transformations in urban development.
