At the beginning of the twentieth century the growth of towns was accompanied by the birth of a European and international municipal movement. In 1913 the Union Internationale des Villes/International Union of Local Authorities (UIV/IULA) was founded in Ghent. This combined two approaches, one political and utopian, the other technical and professional. The former focused on turning cities into promoters of a project for co-operation at European and worldwide level; the latter on solving the problems caused by urbanisation. They shared a determination to pursue their objectives regardless of the barriers of culture and national boundaries, and of the administrative hierarchy between local and national government. Between the two world wars the UIV/IULA gradually lost its original utopian inspiration, which was taken up by the Conseil des Communes d'Europe/Council of European Municipalities, founded in Geneva in 1951 with the aim of using the municipalities as a starting point to promote a federation of European states.