The urban sustainable development in European Union through ranking: a tool for governance or a report of territorial disparities?

Sustainable urban development is a major topic in European Union in spite of the fact there are not any integrated strategy implemented directly. However, urban sustainability remains an integrated theme across the territory of European Union, as mentioned in institutional and intergovernmental charters. European institutions prefer to give funds for cities developing sustainable urban renewal projects or encourage cooperation between cities. How to estimate levels of sustainable urban development in European Union? Several methods could be applied as 'benchmarking', revealed by ranking and classifications, like surveys implemented by organisations which action field is sustainability. That is why researchers have to work in this sense. The solution consisting to assess 53 cities for about 20 indicators allow to classify these cities by groups or profiles of sustainability. Although Northern cities seem to be more successful in their action, these processing help to observe different approaches across European Union.