Cities play a vital role for the sustainable development of regions and states, as well to reaching the goals of polycentric development at the European, international, but at the context of the globalization processes also at the intercontinental level. Sustainable urban development is recognized as one of the challenges of the 21st century. Taking into account an a role of the cities, as regional and national centres, at the sustainable development of the state economics over the last few decades, the major part of the representatives of the Latvian state institutions, private and public business organizations, media and public pay attention to the spatial planning and urban policy. Many of the Latvian municipalities, nongovernmental and scientific organizations participate in the international cooperation projects which are aimed to the improvement of the efficiency of the integrated sustainable urban development policy in the European Union to reaching Lisbon and Goteborg goals. Analyzing an experience of the economically developed countries in area of the strategic urban development planning and management, it could be concluded that the use of the methods and techniques of the strategic management in the processes of the planning and management of the human settlements provides conceptually new partnerships between local authorities and local communities. It is important to note that the integration of the principles of sustainable development in the human settlements development policy planning is associated with the search of the possibilities of engagement of society to the urban development decision making and realization processes. During the working out of the strategic development documents of the human settlements the new mechanism of the creation of the partnership could be established. It could help to formulate the goals of sustainable urban development, as well as to identify coordinated actions to achieve these goals. The research aim is to analyze the aspects of the sustainable urban development in the conditions of the modern urbanization and globalization processes. The research is based on the following methods: the analysis of the normative acts and conceptual statements of the regulation of the urban development, interpretation of the expert's opinions and conclusions, as well, as monographic and logically constructive method. The results of this study showed that it is crucial to develop the integration of the strategic management's methods and tools for the sustainable urban development in Latvia.