**5. Results**

This research analysis focused on the urban sustainability of the host cities of The French Way of Saint James in Castilla y León, which in 2019 had more than 5000 people. The data provided by the SUA and each of the selected indicators (Table 3), considering their scores with the values already normalized and weighted for each city in the range of 0–10, allow us to identify and diagnose the situation of the cities according to the 10 objectives specific to the SUA and, therefore, to the SDGs (Table 2).

In this way, by analyzing the scores of each one of the indicators by the host city, grouped in the 10 Specific Objectives of the SUA, general values were obtained (Table 4).

According to the general values obtained, the city of Valverde de la Virgen has the best performance in terms of sustainability. Valverde de la Virgen also presents the best values in 9 of the 10 Specific Objectives of the SUA. In descending order, are the cities of León and Burgos, which present similar general values between them. Then, there is the city of Ponferrada, which is the predecessor of the worst performers found in terms of general urban sustainability, visible in the cities of Cacabelos and Astorga, respectively (Figure 5).

**Table 4.** Results of the values referring to urban sustainability in the host cities, which were analyzed according to the Specific Objectives of the SUA.


**Figure 5.** General values of the urban sustainability in the host cities of The French Way of Saint James in Castilla y León.

In detail, for each of the cities analyzed, Valverde de la Virgen has the best performance in all the Objectives (1; 2; 3; 4; 6; 7; 8; 9; and 10) compared to the other cities, with the sole exception of Objective 5. Its particular performance stands out in Specific Objective 4 "Make sustainable management of resources and favor the circular economy" and in Objective 10 "Improve intervention instruments and governance". In Specific Objectives 6 "Promote social cohesion and seek equity" and 7 "Promote and favor the Urban Economy", it is also a leader, but in this case, it shares its leadership with Ponferrada and Burgos, respectively. Continuing with the comparison, it is identified that the only Objective that the city of Valverde de la Virgen is surpassed is in Objective 5 "Promote proximity and sustainable mobility", where the cities of Burgos and León have the best diagnoses (Figure 6). Even in Objective 5, Valverde de la Virgen presented the lowest values and, therefore, the worst performance.

Following the leadership of Valverde de la Virgen, we visualized a group of cities composed of León and Burgos, which reflects their general values in terms of sustainability in a fairly similar way.

León is surpassed by Valverde de la Virgen in the Specific Objective 1 "Organize the territory and make rational use of the land, conserve and protect it", Objective 2 "Avoid urban sprawl and revitalize the existing city", Objective 4 "Make sustainable management of resources and promote the circular economy", and Objective 8 "Guarantee access to Housing". It is only surpassed by Burgos in Specific Objective 5, referring to "Promote proximity and sustainable mobility". However, there are no cities that present lower values than León in Specific Objective 3 regarding adaptation and resilience to climate change; therefore, the less favorable position in this particular aspect is attributed.

**Figure 6.** Radio visibility of the contribution to urban sustainability by city according to the Specific Objectives of the SUA.

Burgos, on the other hand, stands out as being the best city in the Specific Objective 5 regarding sustainable mobility and, together with Valverde de la Virgen, they present the best values in Objective 7 regarding urban economy. Without taking into account the comparison with the other cities, the values of Burgos appear quite uniform according to all the Specific Objectives of the SUA, where its best version is found in Objective 5 and its most unfavorable value in Objective 4 "Make sustainable management of resources and favor the circular economy".

Comparing the city of Ponferrada with the other cities, it is possible to observe that its position in fourth place, according to the general value obtained, represents and justifies its detailed analysis and comparison for each of the Specific Objectives. In fact, Ponferrada is in fourth position in Specific Objectives 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (with Burgos), 9, and 10. Undoubtedly, the particularity and the aspect to highlight of Ponferrada is there is no other city that surpasses it in its contribution towards Specific Objective 6, referring to "Promote social cohesion and seek equity". Viewing only the values relevant to Ponferrada, it is observed that its worst performance is shown under Objective 4 "Make sustainable management of resources and favor the circular economy".

The cities of Cacabelos and Astorga are the cities with the worst numbers in terms of the general values according to their contribution to the Specific Objectives defined by the SUA.

Compared to the other cities, Cacabelos presents the lowest values in compliance with Specific Objectives 1, 2, 8, and 10. In addition, it is in the penultimate place in its contribution towards Specific Objectives 4, 5, 6, and 7. Leaving aside the comparison, the worst value of Cacabelos is framed under Specific Objective 4, referring to "Make sustainable management of resources and promote the circular economy", and its best version is found in Specific Objective 3, regarding prevention, anticipation, and adaptation strategies to climate change.

For its part, the city of Astorga justifies its last position in terms of urban sustainability in this comparison of cities, since it shows the worst values in Specific Objectives 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 and second to last in the values of Objectives 1, 2, 8, and 10. The city of Astorga is in second position, just behind Valverde de la Virgen, referring to its adaptive management of climate change, without a doubt the greatest aspect that contributes to its own urban sustainability. On the contrary, its diagnosis regarding the sustainable management of resources and the promotion of the circular economy shows the lowest value of all those presented by the other cities.

#### **6. Discussion and Conclusions**

This article used the data provided by the SUA to overcome the barriers and challenges that are usually found when trying to locate and territorialize the SDGs at the local level. The availability of reliable, quantifiable, and updated data, which serve as indicators, makes it possible to work with the SUA itself, giving it greater visibility and significance, in addition to stimulating progress "from the bottom up", considering cities as fundamental engines of change in terms of sustainability and the labels of the "glocal".

Understanding that the SDGs are more general and global objectives, their location and territorialization was carried out in this case by evaluating the Specific Objectives of the SUA, a document directly related to the 2030 Agenda due to its origin, nature, and objectives pursued. This work highlights the ability of the SUA to reflect the urban realities of Spanish towns and cities and to reflect their contributions towards sustainable development and the SDGs. In this case, host cities of Castilla y León, linked to The French Way of Saint James, were analyzed.

The results of the diagnosis of the cities of Valverde de la Virgen, León, Burgos, Ponferrada, and Cacabelos allowed the identification of four marked groups in reference to the state of the situation of sustainable development.

In the evaluation conducted, it is highlighted that the city of Valverde de la Virgen has the conditions and the support to lead other cities in terms of urban sustainability, a fact that perhaps its own authorities are unaware of. Especially, Valverde de la Virgen could lead and serve as an example of urban sustainability for small cities in the region such as Cacabelos and Astorga. Therefore, the analysis carried out thus gives it a very prominent role in the post of urban sustainability and even the city itself could cling to it, using it as a communication strategy to, for example, promote the passage of tourists who travel The French Way of Saint James through a "sustainable city". The good condition that Valverde de la Virgen presents in terms of sustainability is a great strength, considering the increase in population that it has experienced in recent years. In reference to this, it could improve its behavior in mobility and digital innovation since these are essential issues for a good-quality urban life in these times.

León and Burgos, beyond their geographical distance and belonging to different provinces, reflect a good performance in terms of sustainability with similar contributions towards sustainable development. These cities, given that both are capitals of their respective provinces and have more than 350,000 people, could also even be provincial, Autonomous Community, and The Way of Saint James benchmarks in terms of sustainability, and even work together to guide sustainable development at the regional level. In a potential joint effort for their sustainable development, León could learn from Burgos issues on sustainable mobility and climate change while Burgos could learn from León issues on resource management, circular economy, and access to housing such as urban land use. Since they are cities with a lot of weight in the development of the Autonomous Community, together, they have great potential to request aid for sustainability (for example, for climate change issues) from the Autonomous Community itself, the Government of Spain, and even the EU.

Ponferrada stands out as a city with uniform parameters. However, it could increase its efforts and ambitions to achieve a better performance. It is recommended that it aligns and works together with the cities that stand out the most in this regard, mainly with León and Burgos due to their population sizes. With similar parameters considering the contributions towards the Specific Objectives of the SUA, the local administration presents the opportunity to define, based on the diagnosis, where to particularly focus the greatest efforts and action plans. However, it is recommended to promote actions in innovation, resource management, and the circular economy.

Both Cacabelos and Astorga are disadvantaged by the analysis carried out. Therefore, they are the cities that must begin to work more decisively in the search for urban sustainability so that they can guarantee a greater state of social, economic, and environmental well-being for their citizens, tourists, and biodiversity in general. The most disadvantaged position of these cities can also be taken to attract financing that motivates the implementation of ambitious and urgent action plans. It is recommended that they follow the exemplary performances of Valverde de la Virgen to identify and improve their good performances, replicate them, and work together.

Considering the general analysis of the cities, only Valverde de la Virgen exceeded 5 points on the 0–10 scale. In other words, these host cities are not in a very privileged position in terms of urban sustainability. This situation results in the thought and reflection that there is still much to be achieved for urban areas to contribute efficiently to the goals of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. In the case where the cities on The French Way of Saint James in Castilla y León were analyzed have to focus jointly on some interventions and action plans in particular, and the results have shown the need to act to increase resilience against the impacts of climate change and improve the sustainable management of resources. For the relationship between climate change and The French Way of Saint James in Castilla y León, climatic conditions with decreased rainfall and increased temperatures are projected. This has the potential to affect the seasonality of visits, the health of pilgrims, the conditions of public services in cities and towns, and even the cultural heritage [52]. Regarding resource management, a circular model of landscape resource regeneration can, therefore, contribute to the reconstruction of local economies. In small towns and in the innermost territories, where depopulation and human dynamics affect the quality of the landscape and elements of vitality persist, regenerative models of resources inspired by circular economic systems, such as slow tourism, can be applied with greater ease [53]. On the other hand, this set of cities shows its best performance in terms of sustainable mobility and intervention and governance instruments. Another important point that emerges from the joint analysis of the cities is the high degree of diversification and heterogeneity of the municipalities in relation to sustainability.

If the results are analyzed by differentiating two groups of cities, understanding that the present behaviors, resources, and realities of León, Burgos, and Ponferrada (larger cities) are different from Cacabelos, Astorga, and Valverde de la Virgen (smaller cities), especially due to the size of their populations, we find the following behaviors: larger cities have a better urban sustainability performance compared to small cities. This was evidenced in 8 of the 10 Goals (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). However, small cities, as a whole, present better performances in Objective 3 and 9 regarding climate change and innovation, respectively. This is mainly justified by the high values obtained by Valverde de la Virgen, since they are results, at least, that attract attention. Above all and especially, they draw attention to the issue of innovation since a great challenge and problem that the smaller towns and cities of Castilla y León have is their lack of connectivity and innovation.

The activity and the results obtained are useful since they can be part of a management tool that supports the prioritization of local and/or regional policy interventions based on reliable, verifiable, and up-to-date data. In addition, this article helps to improve the actions of The Way of Saint James and the relationships between cities and towns, as the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of The Way of Saint James demonstrates. This article stimulates the opportunity of local governments to implement local urban agendas, integrate urban policies, accelerate bottom-up actions, and establish innovative public policies, potentially linked by their synergy with The Way of Saint James. Its greatest

weakness is that the implementation of concrete actions depends on political will and even financial aid.

Considering the establishment of urban sustainability, the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs on The Way of Saint James as a development alternative can bring with them an opportunity to lead a paradigm shift in a group of cities (and also towns) that face great challenges at the local and regional level. The link, and the knowledge that they are working with the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda, generates the potential opportunity to obtain aid and subsidies (from interested companies, the European Union, or the Spanish government, for example) to execute action plans, with support based on the UAE, which is reliable for measuring progress and following up with updated data. The historical–traditional relationship that the analyzed cities from The French Way of Saint James present in this case in its passage through Castilla y León, in addition to delimiting the scope of the investigation, provides the possibility of strengthening existing alliances (Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of The Way of Saint James) and promoting new ones. Although the definition and measurement of sustainability is a complex and debatable issue, the work places it at the center of the scene. What is not debatable is that cities must work more ambitiously in search of sustainable development and having a reliable diagnosis, as reflected in this article, is the central tool to direct interventions and monitor them with the passage of time (especially useful for smaller cities).

Future research could even use the method developed in this article with new data from the Spanish Urban Agenda, post-2022, so that the impacts of COVID-19 on the sustainable development of the analyzed cities are known. The monitoring of urban sustainability over time is a great tool for observing how cities are developing, how they are growing (or decreasing), and where the main weakness in their progress is. In addition, the SUA itself also makes it possible to compare the cities of The French Way of Saint James in Castilla y León with the cities of The French Way of Saint James in other Autonomous Communities such as Aragón, Navarra, La Rioja, or Galicia, for example, organizing the results by city (as in this case) or by Autonomous Communities.

The measures of change for a better sustainable performance of the cities analyzed must be based on the cultural-territorial union of the cities themselves with The Way of Saint James. In this way, by acting together, they can help each other by taking exemplary cases, transmitting knowledge and actions, and, above all, requesting help from various governmental or non-governmental organizations to apply them in a timely manner in specific action plans. Likewise, these cities must support and guide the towns on The Way of Saint James in Castilla and León, which depend largely on the passage of tourists, and which currently suffer from serious problems such as depopulation, aging, and lack of services, among others.

This research facilitates the debate on the progress and advancement of urban sustainability and the SDGs, stimulates research on the subject, promotes citizen awareness and participation from academic environments, and even engages local and regional authorities in the search for cities that are prepared for greater social welfare. For additional information on the subject see Supplementary Materials.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/su14159164/s1, Additional information on the subject can be found in the UVa Master's Thesis: "El camino hacia los ODS—Metodología para la localización de los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible en las ciudades y pueblos del Camino de Santiago" publicly available here. https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/45282?locale-attribute=es (accessed on 1 June 2022). The mentioned Master's Thesis has been recognized by the UVa with the Extraordinary End-of-Master Award.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, F.T., L.F.L.-C. and O.F.B.; methodology, F.T. and M.S.W.; validation O.L.G.-N., D.A.M.V. and J.E.M.-V.; formal analysis, F.T., M.S.W. and O.L.G.-N.; investigation, F.T., L.F.L.-C. and M.S.W.; writing F.T. and O.F.B., writing—review and editing, F.T., L.F.L.-C., O.F.B. and M.S.W.; supervision, A.C.-G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** In this study, publicly available datasets from the Spanish Urban Agenda were analyzed. This data can be found here: https://www.aue.gob.es, accessed on 10 June 2021.

**Acknowledgments:** The main author of the article thanks his work team, his tutors and directors who motivate the writing of the article. The authors would like to thank the European Union for supporting this work through the FUSILLI project (H2020-FNR-2020-1/CE-FNR-07-2020). Francisco Tomatis has been financed under the call for UVa 2020 predoctoral contracts, co-financed by Banco Santander.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
