The PLUREL project, FP6 program (2007-2011) addressed three main issues; the first concerns the difficulties in controlling land use changes in many EU countries. The PLUREL project therefore analyzed the levels of organisation, democratic control and fragmentation of governance structures in archetypal rural/urban regions. The second issue concerned the problems of spatial planning and urban expansion, determined by the mentality of NIMBYism, and finally the question of financial and fiscal mechanisms which are also driving factors of urban expansion. The results showed that strong democratic governments are needed to manage market forces and aim to avoid fiscal incentives that could lead to wasteful competition; venture into strategic planning rather than competition. The next project is the Joining Forces model which was born as a result of problems between municipalities and urban realities. Various solutions have been tried and tested in the past, such as merging municipalities in Belgium and creating metropolitan authorities in French communities, but most of these solutions have proven to be ineffective! Therefore the results showed that pooling authorities' resources would be efficient, however the main problem is the distrust of different entities towards each other! National governments should approve a legal framework for this process to take place. The fifth project is URBACT Citylab: Managing metropolitan areas beyond borders and borders. Following the ESPON 2007 project, the official definitions of MUA and FUA can be found here. This project defined MUAs as highly populated areas that usually do not correspond to administrative boundaries. FUAs are defined as functionally l...... middle of document ......2014). Prof. Dr. Hartmut Häussermann — Urban sociology. Retrieved June 19, 2014, from http://www.sowi.hu-berlin.de/lehrbereiche-en/stadtsoz-en/faculty/past-faculty/haeussermannTheFreeDictionary.com. (2014). nimbism. Retrieved June 12, 2014, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nimbyismTosics, I. (2011). Challenges and governance models for the cities of tomorrow. Document edited by the European Commission-DG Regional Policy. Budapest: Metropolitan Research Institute.Tosics, I. (2013). Sustainable land use in peri-urban areas: governance, planning and financial instruments. In Peri-urban futures: scenarios and models for land use change in Europe (pp. 373-404). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.Urbact.eu,. (2014). Metropolitan government. Retrieved June 20, 2014, from http://urbact.eu/en/urbact-capitalisation/exploring-our-thematic-clusters/metropolitan-governance/