ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the European City model and its potential to produce more sustainable urban areas/cities. It shows the problematic relationship between social justice and economic growth that is inherent to the European City model. The chapter also examines the implementation of the European City model to expose the contested relationship between market logics and growth orientation in urban planning, on the one hand, and social justice and the communicative planning culture, on the other. It explores one such model, the city of Freiburg, Germany. In particular, the authors interrogate Freiburg's efforts of bringing together a coherent sustainable city agenda. By the 1990s, the European City model emerged as a political programme when severe economic and political restructuring took place all over Europe and, especially, in post-1989 Germany. Vauban's success as a 'sustainable' neighbourhood, which heavily relies on innovative sustainable technologies and policies, is also framed by an imaginary of social tolerance and a 'colourful' social structure.
