The main concepts and principles of the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning (the Guidelines, or IGUTP; UN-Habitat, 2017), can be summarized briefly as follows [verbatim or paraphrased]:

The Guidelines are intended to effectively respond to the challenges of urban transformation, population growth, and climate change, by using them as a framework for improving global policies, plans, designs, and implementation processes, which will lead to more compact, socially inclusive, better integrated and connected cities and territories that foster sustainable urban development and are resilient to climate change.

• The Guidelines are intended “To raise the urban and territorial dimensions of the development agendas of national, regional, and local governments.” In particular, the Guidelines discuss this nested hierarchy of scales: supranational/transboundary; national, city-region, and metropolitan level, city and municipal level, and neighborhood level.

• Urban and territorial planning provides a spatial framework to protect and manage the natural and built environment of cities and territories, including their biodiversity, land, and natural resources, and to ensure integrated and sustainable development.

• Urban and territorial planning contributes to increased human security by strengthening environmental and socioeconomic resilience, enhancing mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change, and improving the management of natural.

• The IGUTP provides advice on urban policy and governance and spells out the roles of national governments, local authorities, civil society organizations, and planning professionals and their associations.

• Urban and territorial planning is more than a technical tool, it is an integrative and participatory decision-making process that addresses competing interests and is linked to a shared vision, an overall development strategy implemented through integrated aspatial policies at the national, regional, and local urban scales.

• Urban and territorial planning represents a core component of the renewed urban governance paradigm, which promotes local democracy, participation and inclusion, transparency, and accountability, with a view to ensuring sustainable urbanization and spatial quality.

• Urban and territorial planning is intended to advance the three complementary dimensions of sustainable development: social development and inclusion; sustained economic growth; and environmental protection and management.

• Integration of those three dimensions in a synergetic way requires political commitment and the involvement of all stakeholders, who should participate in urban and territorial planning processes.