ABSTRACT
This chapter recapitulates the main findings of the comparative investigation into national urban policy in the European Union undertaken early in 1997 and published in 1998. As such it serves as a state-of-the-art description of the stitution of about seven years ago and as a starting and orientation point for the current exercise, which is focused on analysing changes since then. This recapitulation is based on 15 national reports, in each of which the national urban policies were discussed in the context of the national spatial pattern, the administrative framework, the financial framework and the urban issues and challenges as perceived at the national level. This chapter is first concerned with the national spatial development patterns and the national administrative and financial structures according to the 1997 situation. These issues, which are important as preconditions for urban development and policy-making, will not be dealt with in depth in this volume, unless important changes have taken place during the last seven years or can be expected to happen soon. After that, the attention is shifted to what national governments considered to be urban issues and challenges in the mid-1990s, followed by an overview of the main features of national urban policy in the member states of the European Union in that period.
