Ad hoc Working Group for the Elaboration of the 9th Report on the State of the Alps

Every two years, the Alpine Convention publishes the Report on the State of the Alps (RSA), an in-depth analysis on topics of particular relevance to the Alps. The Reports are the result of a collective effort by an international team. They tackle Alpine environmental, economic or social themes on the Alpine-wide dimension, but without losing the focus on the situation in each Alpine country. This approach, together with the expertise of delegates from the Contracting parties and Observers, allows science to be combined with policy, and Alpine dynamics to be identified, as well as common recommendations or proposals for action. To carry out this important and ambitious task, the XVI Alpine Conference established the RSA 9 ad hoc Working Group to deal with the theme of Alpine cities.

Urbanisation has been a consistent trend in the past years in the Alpine region. More and more people move from peripheric areas to the cities. In the Alps, only 10% of the municipalities have more than 10,000 inhabitants: nevertheless, they host more than one third of the Alpine population and grow on average twice as much as other municipalities. At the same time, the topic of Alpine towns has never been properly addressed in research.

For all these reasons, the Swiss Presidency of the Alpine Convention decided to fill this gap and dedicate the RSA 9 to Alpine towns. The report addresses cities first of all from a scientific perspective, by analysing the transnational and Alpine trends in order to provide a clear status of the current situation. Secondly and equally importantly, the text  is also practice-oriented, since it addresses practitioners, public administrators, and local actors by covering urban and socio-economic aspects and highlighting common urban challenges. The Report was adopted by the XVII Alpine Conference in Brig (CH).