2. Civil Society in Urban Areas: A Partner for Territorial Cohesion?

Territorial dimension and integrated approaches to regional and urban development became an important issue in programmes financed by the EU Cohesion Policy. Local actors and nonprofit organisations (NPOs), as the crucial representatives of civil society, belong to partners in creation and implementation of EU integrated approaches, such as integrated urban development plans. However, the participative approaches to governance have been developing slowly in Central and Eastern Europe. The Czech Republic’s case in this chapter shows how the NPOs with their limited capacities tackle with such circumstances and how NPOs can influence territorial cohesion processes. For this reason, we investigate the role of Czech civil society in territorial cohesion, particularly in Integrated Urban Development Plans implemented in programming period 2007–2013.