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Heavy metals originating from vehicular emissions and other anthropogenic sources pose one of the main environmental health risks in urban areas. The assessment of metal bioaccumulation in selected species of synanthropic organisms allows evaluating their bioavailability and the transfer along food chains in urban ecosystems. An overall view of the results achieved in Siena on urban ecosystems shows that the mean Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn concentrations in biological crusts covering urban walls (0.66, 34, 65, and 184 μg·g−1 d.w.) are higher than the respective concentrations in tree leaf litter (0.19, 9.5, 9.2, and 38 μg·g−1 d.w.) and topsoil (0.40, 44, 34.2, and 102 μg·g−1 d.w.). Furthermore, the epilithic moss Tortula muralis accumulated much higher levels of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn (0.34, 65, 17.6, and 106 μg·g−1 d.w.) than epiphytic lichens (0.22, 11.6, 2.1, and 47.3 μg·g−1 d.w.) or the holm oak live foliage (0.15, 14, 1.51, and 26.5 μg·g−1 d.w.), respectively. However, analyses of the soft tissues of Papillifera papillaris, a snail dwelling on stone walls, show that metals deposited on urban walls are scarcely bioavailable. Papillifera accumulates (and transfers to the next trophic level) amounts of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn (1.7, 171, 1.1, and 71 μg·g−1 d.w., respectively) that are comparable or inferior to those found in a ground-dwelling snail (3.3, 88, 2.0, and 880 μg·g−1 d.w.) and two earthworm species (2.0–4.4, 18–23, 1.4–2.2, and 356–594 μg·g−1 d.w.) from the same urban green area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the use of an evaluation model able to estimate the possibilities of reducing energy consumption and emissions of the building sector exploiting renewable energy sources. Specific attention is given to the use of ground source heat pumps in the urban context, proposing an ex-ante evaluation of different scenarios to identify the most balanced one in terms of energy, economic and environmental effects. The model is applied to a case study in Northern Italy to show how it can be used to support local administrations in energy urban planning, fitting economically and environmentally sustainable technologies. Moreover, it defines new boundaries in which the energy and environmental analyses should be carried out (spatial relocation), and the time span over which impacts have to be evaluated (temporal relocation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An application of the innovative city planning method, developed within the EU FP7 project InSMART, is applied to the municipality of Cesena (Italy). A multi-model approach is used to explore and rank alternative plans (combinations of actions and measures) towards the sustainable development of the municipality, with a particular focus on the residential and transport sectors. On the basis of the possible space of decisions of the municipality (which can be seen as “urban planner”, as “regulator”, as “provider of support and information”, as “consumer” and as “supplier” of energy), alternative planning hypotheses have been prepared and tested making use of a city-energy system model and scenario analysis. Scenarios are built around different themes with the aim of exploring the potential benefits (or drawbacks) of the combination of specific “competitive” projects, actions, standards, targets. A reference development of the local system is assumed to be modified through six combinations of actions and measures aiming at representing six pillars of alternative pathways towards the sustainability. Figures below report the key themes and hypotheses taken into consideration in the planning exercise. Once the dynamic pictures of the urban system are produced (one per each alternative), a multi-criteria method is used to determine the ranking of the options, evaluated against a set of elements (technological, social, environmental, economic). This stage is still ongoing and will generate the whole dataset (weights, preference functions) required to rank the alternatives in the next few months. All these alternative strategies are designed with the involvement of the municipality of Cesena, to directly respond their needs of knowledge about potential impacts of different action plans. Compared to the existing city strategic energy action plans, the advantage of the outputs of this approach is the fact that multiple future energy scenarios are analysed and cross-compared and “integrated” strategies ranked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 350-m-thick succession of the Po River lowstand wedge (Italy) associated with the Last Glacial Maximum (deposited over ~17 k.y) contains stratal architecture at a physical scale commonly attributed to much longer time scales, with complex, systematically varying internal clinothem characteristics. This study investigated clinothem stacking patterns and controls through the integration of seismic reflection data with sediment attributes, micropaleontology, regional climate, eustacy, and high-resolution age control possible only in Quaternary sequences. Three clinothem types are differentiated based on topset geometry, shelf-edge and onlap-point trajectory, internal seismic facies, and interpreted bottomset deposits: type A has moderate topset aggradation, ascending shelf-edge trajectory, and mass-transport bottomset deposits; type B has eroded topset, descending shelf-edge trajectory, and bottomset distributary channel-lobe complexes; and type C has maximal topset aggradation, ascending shelf-edge trajectory, and concordant bottomsets. Type A and C clinothems exhibit reduced sediment bypass and delivery to the basin, whereas type B clinothems are associated with short intervals of increased sediment export from the shelf to deeper water. Clinothems individually span a range of 0.4-4.7 k.y., contemporaneous with significant eustatic and climate changes, but their stacking patterns resemble those found in ancient successions and ascribed to significantly longer durations, indicating that (1) the response time of ancient continental margin-scale systems to high-frequency variations in accommodation and sediment supply could be as short as centuries, (2) even millennial- to centennial-scale stratal units can record substantial influence of allogenic controls, and (3) sandy deposits can be compartmentalized even in a short-duration lowstand systems tract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Loggia, Arquitectura & Restauración is the property of Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Climate change mitigation and adaptation policies play a role in the political agendas of local authorities. The number of monitoring tools and experiences is progressively increasing also due to improvement in standardization of methods and proliferation of research and accounting experiments, which bring about increase in awareness of political subjects and the general public. Coherently with its Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP), in 2018 the Municipality of Grosseto (central Italy) decided to build a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory integrated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based maps, to visualize the spatial distribution of the GHG balance results. A bottom-up GHG emissions inventory at the sub-national level has been elaborated, following the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines, with the aim of creating site-specific knowledge and supporting policies. GHG gross emissions corresponded to 395,558.59 t carbon dioxide equivalents (CO 2 eq), i.e. five time higher than CO 2 absorption, determining an abatement percentage of 17.09%. The emissions came mainly from road transport (47.57%), heating (15.01%), and consumption of imported electricity (14.57%). The GHG emissions balance results have been translated into five geo-referenced GIS-based maps, which help localize the areas under stress and categorize the territory into GHG action zones, able to stimulate environmental policies and monitor their efficacy. Beside policies inspired by the key categories of the GHG emissions inventory (e.g., mobility, import of electricity, heating), the spatial visualization of results stimulates considerations and measures regarding the localization of activities and infrastructures, urban and environmental planning, and land use change, which are not always supported by adequate information in the case of sub-national administrative systems. Moreover, by virtue of reliability and replicability, the obtained results (i.e., climate-altering emission maps and GHG action zones identification) should be incorporated into the so-called Baseline and Monitoring Emission Inventories, required in the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) of the municipalities that join the Covenant of Mayors. [Display omitted] • The GHG spatial inventory of the Municipality of Grosseto (Italy) is developed. • GHG emissions and removals are spatially visualized through geo-referenced maps. • The territory is divided into GHG action zones to tailor environmental policies. • The GHG geographical mosaic provides a systemic overview of the GHG emissions. • GHG maps should be incorporated in the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study is here presented in which the design perspective in the redevelopment of public spaces is overturned: instead of designing the area and then verifying the results in terms of effective liveability of the new spaces, the results of the analysis of the present comfort conditions become the tool to address the design operations. In particular, the bioclimatic analysis of the system of central squares of the small town in Sant’Ilario d’Enza (Italy) becomes the base for the design of a new liveable space among buildings of limited historical and architectural value. The ENVIMET fluido-dynamics software is used to assess the present outdoor comfort conditions in the different times of the year and to identify the critical elements to be modified. The indications for the insertion of new green spaces suggest a symbolic return to the rural past of the area, elaborated with a contemporary design, taking also into account the flexible uses nowadays required by these common spaces. Other recommendations are focused on the external façades of the buildings, thus allowing to improve both the internal energetic balance and the effects on the external urban environment. The attempt is to insert some quantitative elements in a field – the redevelopment of urban public spaces – which is usually rather qualitative and subjected to personal judgment, improving at the same time the aesthetics, the usability and the liveability of these spaces in a sustainable way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the critical issues of the current urban planning, mobility and accessibility in the post-earthquake (2009) settlement configuration of L’Aquila urban area (Italy), the medieval centre of which has a unique architectural and artistic heritage. The purpose of the study is to analyse the L’Aquila urban planning experiences in order to trace the relationship between the mobility and the spatial structure of the city. The current scenario is considered both as the result of the historical evolution of the settlement and as a dynamic system in which a mix of natural forces, decisional choices and technical expertise have operated. The result of the research is a preliminary proposal for the implementation of the public transportation system that is obtained by integrating a re-designed existing railway line with a sustainable concepts of mobility based on a “dense grid” network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the relationship between urban spatial structure and land use fragmentation in the Functional Urban Area (FUA) of Milan to understand if and how the urban morphology influences the patterns of land use at the metropolitan scale. Using Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis, we find that the spatial structure of the urbanisation in the study area follows the traditional monocentric distribution in the south while multi-centricity characterises the north to the largest extent. Findings suggest clearly that different urban spatial structures lead to diverse patterns of land use. In particular, it appears that the degree of discontinuity of residential areas is lower in the presence of secondary sub-centres compared to the mono-centric distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of a long-lasting geomorphological survey carried out in Rome are summarized. A method aimed at integrating survey data, historical maps, aerial photographs and archaeological and geomorphological literature produced a geomorphological map of the present-day historical centre. The geomorphology of Rome is related to the paleogeographical conditions prior to the founding of the City; they allow us to recognize the stages of landscape evolution of the ancientCaput Mundi(Capital of the World). The study area has been affected by continuous man-made changes to the drainage network and to the topographic surface over the last 3000 years. It has forced the authors to develop innovative solutions to undertake effective analysis of the urban environment and the legend of the geomorphological map in this peculiar context. The resulting map is useful for urban planning and archaeological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the moment of Italian political unification, the Mezzogiorno (i.e. Southern Italy) was affected by a deep institutional change and it entered the wave of financial market openness, attracting all forms of investments from international capital markets. Naples – after having lost its previous role as the Bourbon kingdom’s capital city – enabled projects of large scale urban planning, beginning with basic public utilities. In this process, public and private lighting was chronologically the first area of interest – parallel with railway development planning – where international finance played a role. As evidence of the dynamics which brought this peripheral European area into the orbit of the first globalisation, this article addresses the complex business of energy supply in Naples – between 1862 and World War I – both from the point of view of its financial dynamics and the parallel evolution and organisational characteristics of the business actors involved. The Social Network Analysis (SNA) will support the reconstruction of the diversified and transnational businesses which the Neapolitan energy business was integrated in, at the same time giving evidence of both the bindings linking legally independent companies and the multiple relations between the actors involved. The transition from gas to electricity during this time marked the transition from weak to strong corporate ties according to the evolutionary trends both of technology and international financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1493, Leonardo da Vinci proposed an ambitious plan for the transformation of Milan, consisting of the construction of ten new cities in order to solve overcrowding and insalubrity problems at the Lombard capital. With this project, which links urban growth dynamics with interior reorganization processes, Leonardo achieved a synthesis of a long search between the utopian of the new planned ideal city and the pragmatism of the renovation of the medieval cores within the values from the humanistic culture of the Renaissance. This article relates the singular strategy of the urban transformation proposed by Leonardo for Milan with his studies about formal structures and formation processes in territory. These investigations, about the permanency and change, finally led to the development of a transformation geometry currently known as topology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lien Social et Politiques is the property of Institut National de Recherche Scientifique (INRS) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines the 20th-century history of urbanization in Rome, Italy from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. The political and architectural factors which influenced the city's planning are analyzed, the connection to the apocalypse in public opinion to changes in the architecture and layout of the city is described, and increases in the Roman population are examined. Information is offered on the attempts by Roman city planners to preserve the historical and mythological role and importance of the city in its revised postwar form.

Bagnoli, a neighbourhood on the west outskirts of Naples, has been a typical industrial and working class area for more than eighty years, having put up an important factory district in a wide territory belonging to its seaside zone, where the Ilva-Italsider building, third steel industry centre in Italy, dominated. Since 1993 this huge factory has been definitely closed and its facilities have been phased out. So the large territory has become object of an important conversion and urban requalification project. Between 1995, when the variant Regulation Plan of Naples Municipality was introduced, and 2005, when the Executive Urban Plan was approved, this project has been developing and completing, defining the future of the ex industrial area, according some privileged lines: enhancement of natural and landscape aspects inside the heart of Pozzuoli gulf; recovery and development of the original touristic vocation through the thermal system and bathing restoration. This project opens towards great expectations of transformation and improvement of life and environment quality both for the inhabitants who live there in the neighbourhood and for the whole city. At the same time it has happened a speculation phenomenon through the sale contract concerning buildings and flats by the realties, together with the transfer of many historical inhabitants and the arrival of new people in the neighbourhood. They are attracted by the changing prospective of the area, but they have no relation with the zone and its history. So, during the last twenty years, the neighbourhood identity has been modified. Contemporarily, the soils draining proceeds slowly and among thousands difficulties, while the sea bottom draining isn't active yet. Today, most of the area is under seizure by judiciary, that found irregularities and defaults in the draining works, realized only for the 65%. The future imagined in the conversion project results, in this way, largely compromised. In this research work we intend to verify how a particular physical-spatial dimension has influenced the social relations and the same identities of the people and their "community", how we can delineate the perception and the performance of a urban transformation largely failed, and which contribution the citizens of Bagnoli can give to the urban design through their own imaginary and meanings they ascribe to their environment (Lynch 1960). In this sense, the study aim at giving a contribution to the participative practice, that up to now is out of the transition dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In southern Italy many cities are characterized by a lack of public urban greenspaces. Non-urbanized areas in these cities are suffering from surrounding urbanization pressures. These areas still provide important ecosystem services even if they are limited in size, highly fragmented and often neglected by local planning. New planning strategies are needed in order to protect and enhance the provision of ecosystem services delivered by existing Non-Urbanized areas, but municipalities usually have limited funds for acquiring public green areas via land expropriations. At the same time, requests for new urban development are still considerable. Consequently, it is not realistic to propose strategies for green areas that do not include new developments. The paper illustrates a strategy for a Green Oriented Urban Development (GOUD) that has been applied for the Master Plan of Catania, a medium sized city in Sicily (southern Italy). The strategy includes a limited amount of developments as well as new greenspaces in selected areas (Resource Zones), through the transfer of property and development rights between the municipality and developers. The strategy will allow to enhance the provision of ecosystem services, especially cultural services (thanks to a dramatic increase of accessibility to new greenspaces), regulating services (through climate regulation by new green land covers) and provisioning services such as urban agricultural products. Results show that it is possible to improve urban ecosystem services creating a more liveable and healthy urban environment at reduced cost for the municipal administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important tasks of urban and hazard planning is to mitigate the damages and minimize the costs of the recovery process after catastrophic events. In this context, the capability of urban systems and communities to recover from disasters is referred to as resilience. Despite the problem of resilience quantification having received a lot of attention, a mathematical definition of the resilience of an urban community, which takes into account the social aspects of an urban environment, has not yet been identified. In this article, we provide and test a methodology for the assessment of urban resilience to catastrophic events which aims at bridging the gap between the engineering and the ecosystem approaches to resilience. We propose to model an urban system by means of different hybrid social-physical complex networks, obtained by enriching the urban street network with additional information about the social and physical constituents of a city, namely citizens, residential buildings, and services. Then, we introduce a class of efficiency measures on these hybrid networks, inspired by the definition of global efficiency given in complex network theory, and we show that these measures can be effectively used to quantify the resilience of an urban system, by comparing their respective values before and after a catastrophic event and during the reconstruction process. As a case study, we consider simulated earthquakes in the city of Acerra, Italy, and we use these efficiency measures to compare the ability of different reconstruction strategies in restoring the original performance of the urban system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, the use of fossil fuels covers almost 80% of the entire energy needs. In the European Union (EU), 2020 represents a watershed: for the first time, renewables were the main source of electricity. In Italy, the latest surveys demonstrate an increase in the use of alternative energy sources. European legislative framework highlights the importance of these new trends encouraging (and imposing) the use of renewables. The necessity to become more proactive in the energy production–consumption process and in the achievement of sustainability targets brings people to create Energy Communities (ECs) to manage their own energy supply chain. The authors present an overview of the main legislative framework in the EU and Italy in relation to ECs, analyzing the energy consumption, the electricity and heat energy production potentiality, and the energy balance in a portion of an Italian middle-size city in the Milan metropolitan area. Moreover, they underline the technical, regulatory, and planning possibilities to achieve energy independence, exchanging energy among the selected urban district when there is a surplus in production. Lastly, the authors underline the strengths and barriers to the development of ECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a framework for analysing the degree of consideration of sustainability principles in Strategic environmental assessment (SEA), and demonstrates its application to a sample of SEA of Italian urban plans. The framework is based on Gibson's (2006) sustainability principles, which are linked to a number of guidance criteria and eventually to review questions, resulting from an extensive literature review. A total of 71 questions are included in the framework, which gives particular emphasis to key concepts, such as intragenerational and intergenerational equity. The framework was applied to review the Environmental Report of the urban plans of 15 major Italian cities. The results of this review show that, even if sustainability is commonly considered as a pivotal concept, there is still work to be done in order to effectively integrate sustainability principles into SEA. In particular, most of the attention is given to mitigation and compensation measures, rather than to actual attempts to propose more sustainable planning decisions in the first place. Concerning the proposed framework of analysis, further research is required to clarify equity concerns and particularly to identify suitable indicators for operationalizing the concepts of intra/inter-generational equity in decision-making. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The idea of this paper, develops from the consideration that, since the second half of the XXth century, urban planning of Italian historical centers seems constrained by the fear of compromising the architectures of the past. Rome's city centre, today UNESCO site, gathers a built up heritage that witness its long and unique existence. The missing industrialization phase that, during the XIXth century, determined the urban transformation of the great European capital cities, has permitted to a large area characterized by highly stratified urban tissue to survive. The aim of this project is to exploit the geometric precision and descriptive detail, characterizing the "Nuova pianta di Roma", published in 1748 by Giovanni Battista Nolli, fot studying the urban transformations at housing block level. The rigorous georeferencing of the historical cartography, allows for the spatial comparison with actual cartographies and with very high resolution satellite images, and the consequent analysis of the urban structure and its formal and functional contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The map of the city of Rome 1:5000 scale of 1908 and the map of " Roma e l'agro Romano" that represents a wider area, realized in 1912 have been studied in earlier papers were parameters useful to perform the transformation of the used geodetic system in more modern systems were estimated. Here we want to evaluate the effect of different georeferencing strategies on these maps evaluating separately precision of the model and accuracy obtainable from the maps. The geodetic system used the ellipsoid of Bessel oriented locally in the geodetic observatory in Genoa, while for the projection was used conformal Flamsteed one. To be able to exclude that the deformations are mainly due to the different projection in comparison to the transverse of Mercatore used both for the UTM and for the national system used after 1940, called Gauss-Boaga and based on the Datum Roma40, we decided to study a transformation able to re-project the coordinates of the points with known coordinates as the vertexes of the cartographic elements. The reprojection of the maps need use of package with more complex algorithms of those available on the most diffused software to resample the raster images. After the geroreferencing step, the residual errors must be studied to assess the partial or complete remove of systematic errors. The map georeferenced using the cartographic reprojection can furnish a valid tool to detect variations as the geomorphologic variations due to natural and human causes within one century. The studied cartographies are one of the only existing documents that uniformly represents this whole territory and realized according to modern cartographic methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city-center of L'Aquila suffered big damages from the main seismic event (6th April 2009, 3:32 a.m., local time; Ml=5.8, Mw= 6.2) of the seismic sequence that included hundreds of aftershocks (more than 30 of them 3.5

The historical floods that have occurred since the seventeenth century were collected for a study area in southern Italy. Damages caused by floods, rainfall and the main anthropogenic modifications are discussed all together. The aim was to assess whether the frequency of floods is changing and, if so, whether these changes can be attributed to either rainfall and/or anthropogenic modifications. In 4 % of cases, mainly occurred in past centuries, floods damaged people. Hydraulic works, roads and private buildings were the more frequently damaged elements (25, 18 and 14 % of the cases, respectively). The annual variability of rainfall was discussed using an annual index. Short duration-high intensity rainfalls were characterized considering time series of annual maxima of 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 h and daily rainfall. The rainfall shows a decreasing trend, in terms of both the annual maximum of short duration and the annual amount. The population has been progressively increasing since the sixteenth century, except during the years following the catastrophic 1908 earthquake. The rate of population growth has been very high since the second half of the twentieth century; the urbanized areas greatly increased, especially following the second half of the twentieth century. At the same time, the trend of damaging floods has been increasing, especially since the seventies. The analysis indicates that, despite a rainfall trend favourable towards a reduction in flood occurrence, floods damage has not decreased. This seems to be mainly the effect of mismanagement of land use modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From white to black, passing through pink, cyclamen and lime green, the color, the cheapest means of restoring the urban image, invaded the Romanian cities. Folowing the comparative study of the urban chromatic regulations of some Romanian cities and of some European cities, it can be observed that Romanian legislation has flaws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 1 October 2009, a prolonged and intense rainstorm triggered hundreds of landslides (predominantly debris flows) in an area of about 50 km² in the north-eastern sector of Sicily (Italy). Debris flows swept the highest parts of many villages and passed over the SS114 state highway and the Messina-Catania railway, causing more than 30 fatalities. This region has a high relief, due to recent uplift. The peculiar geological and geomorphological framework represents one of the most common predisposing causes of rainstorm triggered debris flows. This paper deals with the geological and hydro-geomorphological studies performed as a part of the post-disaster activities operated in collaboration with Civil Protection Authority, with the aim at examining landslides effects and mechanisms. The data were elaborated into a GIS platform, to evaluate the influence of urbanisation on the drainage pattern, and were correlated with the lithological and structural framework of the area. Our study points at the evaluation of the volume involved, the detection of triggering mechanisms and the precise reconstruction of the influence of urbanisation as fundamental tools for understanding the dynamics of catastrophic landslides. This kind of analysis, including all the desirable approaches for the correct management of debris flow should be the starting point for robust urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first intervention of Social House at the national level co-financed by the Funds Integrated System (FIS) and the first one that has actually implemented the housing plan launched by the government in 2009 was born in Parma. The project was conceived for the realization of total 2477 accommodation, to be implemented in two stages, in relation to the availability of the areas. The end that has moved the initiative was to promote housing models based on economic and social needs of the community through the redevelopment Urban and Architectural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Social Housing: Outlining new housing policy for Italy, is to propose more complex generational and social mix of residents in the quarter that was earlier designed for utilities and social uniform levels, and are to consider the city logically no longer centred on the development and expansion of the fragmented territory but rather a new concept of urbanity. In the consolidated city and the surrounding areas, the requalification and densification of the existing areas also becomes an opportunity for the conversion efficiency of a public property which is now obsolete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regeneration policy of the PEEP districts, can contribute to the enrichment of the theoretical framework formulated for the protection of the heritage of the Modern Movement. In 2011, the Municipality of Parma, showing a new awareness in relation to assets until now rarely considered, devices a specific field of study within its structural urbanistic plan. In the absence of a regulatory framework of reference, it is crucial to build up the appropriate frameworks of knowledge directed to operational decisions. This can be done by specifically dedicated archives to which to entrust with the definition of a body of rules of urban planning and housing tailored to the particularities of these settlements and to the real questions of transformation that can arise in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An understanding of the energy performance in buildings in an entire municipality or an entire district is important for sustainable energy planning strategies that accelerate the energy renovation process in existing buildings that are not energy efficient. The methodology described in this paper is largely based on information that is already available on building stock (i.e., cartographic documentation, thematic maps, geometric data and others). Data regarding the energy performance of buildings are collected using energy audits on sample buildings, which are selected using a statistical approach. Using the tools in a GIS platform, the integration of two data sources allows for a low cost, comprehensive framework of the energy performance of buildings. This methodology was tested in a medium sized town in the Lombardy region (Italy), and the results are discussed in this paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The energy policy about energy performance of buildings, including minimum energy requirements and energy performance certificate (EPC), is applied to new and existing buildings, especially in the case of energy retrofit. Among existing buildings, heritage buildings are a special case. Another problem is finding an evaluation and measurement tool for town energy consumption which is related to the age and the characteristics of existing buildings. This problem concerns both urban planning discipline and heritage buildings discipline. The introduction of EPC database in Emilia-Romagna legislation (a region located in the North-East of Italy) is an opportunity to perform studies and simulation, in addition to GIS networking elaboration. This paper deals with the case of Ferrara, an old town, in order to debate: [-] number and energy incidence of heritage buildings; [-] influence of typology factor for energy saving in heritage buildings; [-] use of GIS tools to refer EPC, energy class in order to suggest a zone energy indicator (ZEI) for measuring the city and the old town. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Among the recent European territorial changes highlights the spread of population, production and services. In the 70 has started in Bologna a process of urban sprawl that has led, thirty years later, to a marked dispersion. Planning is presented as the means capable of responding to this problem. We therefore propose the study of regional plans that have been developed since 1970 to the present through the use of three instruments: the economic / legal, the the infrastructural and the morphology. The work done to the conclusion that the General Regulator Plan 1970 adopted a model of urban expansion that began the process of dispersion in the province, that the General Regulator Plan of 1985 despite having spent the expansion to the urban transformation failed to prevent further spread and that was with the Provincial Territorial Coordination Plan of 2004 that were generated mechanisms that allowed to start reducing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores urban planning and development in Rome, Italy under the rule of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Particular focus is given to the concept of cosmogony as it applies to architectural design and planning and the use of demolition and conservation of buildings as a tool for Mussolini in developing an identity for Fascist Italy. Other topics explored include the relationship between nationalism and architecture in Italy, city planning in the historic center of Rome, and the architectural concepts of symbolism and form.

Remote Sensing (RS) data and techniques, in combination with GIS and landscape metrics, are fundamental to analyse and characterise Land Cover (LC) and its changes. The case study here described, has been conducted in the area of Avellino (Southern Italy). To characterise the dynamics of changes during a fifty year period (1954/2004), a multi-temporal set of images has been processed: aerial photos (1954), and Landsat scenes (MSS 1975, TM 1985 and 1993, ETM+ 2004). LC pattern and its changes are linked to both natural and social processes whose driving role has been clearly demonstrated in the case study: after the disastrous Irpinia earthquake (1980), specific zoning laws and urban plans have significantly addressed landscape changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the experimental actions fostered so far by the Compagnia di San Paolo through its Housing Program, committed in handling the complex and fragmented housing discomfort issue, the Temporary Dwellings initiative represents a unique and innovative experience, as it actually offers the chance to activate a proper managerial direction around and about the real estate development processes. In particular, the Temporary Dwellings action is marked by two key aspects: a structured co-planning vision and projects selected through a requests for proposal system. The process in the whole aims on the one hand at reaching an high transparent level of decision making, while, on the other hand, at developing a continuous and mutual monitoring and matching activity between the Housing Program and the group of cross-curricular experts teamed up in the project: technicians, designers, managers, psychologists, contractors, and the other local stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future redevelopment of the densely populated social housing complex, better known as «Diga di Begato», in Genoa, may constitute an important occasion for the wider process of enhancing the urban inland region. Recently, the Council of Genoa has promoted a study into the complex and the urban, territorial and social aspects that characterise it. The Author has been involved in the constructive and maintenance aspects of this complex. Observation of the relationship between technicians and administrators around the work table and during the concluding meeting has led to a better understanding of the situation that will be useful for the development of a shared strategy. This has been developed as a result of the many individual problems that have been identified but also in relation to present values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building lease is a new tool available to the government to finance public 'cold' infrastructures which allows to spread the investment over several years. Some major projects have recently been funded with this solution which can be used for both new works and for interventions on the existing buildings. The use of the building lease on existing assets (such as renovations or restorations), however, is still very rare, because of the need to «sale and lease back» the building concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the Italian cities have been in crisis through the last decades, not being able anymore to guarantee the needs and expectations of their inhabitants, due to the lack of fundamental services, mobility, places of aggregation and attraction. The housing growth since Second World War, answering almost only to the needs of speculation and revaluation of landed revenue, produced anonymous and degraded suburbs, contributing to cancel a fundamental part of our communities' history and culture. The crisis of the cities has clashed with the architectural one. Through sustainable regeneration, identified by the Italian architects as the greatest opportunity for revitalizing the cities and develop the country, we need to sustain interventions based on high architectural quality, besides innovative energetic, environmental and social requalification standards. It is now as never fundamental to extend the city effect from the centre to the far end suburbs, upgrading the public element, integrating the services and proposing new polarities able to interact in a synergic and propaedeutic way with the city centre. Within these settings, involving public agencies and resources with private companies and capitals, the new conversion, development and alienation of the public real estate (valued more than 400 billions €), represent a unique chance to redefine and regenerate the cities, apart from being an extraordinary opportunity to drop the debt and rationalize the local government expenses. To provide powerful infrastructures, aimed cultural policies, sustainable and environmental developments plans, are the biggest challenges to make our cities the most important investment on our future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the experience and activities of the National Centre for Town Planning Studies of the National Council of Engineers (CNI), and AUDIS, the Disused Urban Areas Association, the author proposes some suggestions to emerge - with small steps - from the tunnel of the crisis. First of all, do what is necessary. Simplify the planning regulations and procedures. Measures to take in the short term and at no cost: town planning reform, taking up the Lupi-Mantini proposals previously discussed and shared in the last legislation by Commission VIII of the Chamber on the Territory and Environment; a new law on the landholding system, the proposal developed by CNA (National Confederation of Artisans and Small and Medium Enterprises), CNI, ANCE (Italian National Association of Construction Companies) and Tecnoborsa. Secondly, do what is useful: quality and innovation in urban redevelopment projects. The AUDIS Charter on urban regeneration; the Quality Protocol for Roma Capitale. Thirdly, something extra: targeted projects for start-ups. Social Housing. The city to be scrapped. The renewal of residential assets. The divestment of state-owned properties. The reuse of obsolete industrial buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses aspects of the enhancement and alienation of public property assets in Italy. It explains the proposal of the National Association of Construction Companies (ANCE) for the redevelopment of decayed urban fabric or urban renewal through the creation of a task force that could work alongside and help councils. It also cites the level of planning in the initiative SITdA with the theme of energy saving and social eco-housing.

An interview with INU Italy president Federico Oliva is presented. When asked on the effects in the absence of a preventive urban appreciation strategy, he cites that the absence of a rational alienations will result to economic damage for cities for the State. Oliva states that requalifying the suburbs is an absolutely essential requirement to improve accessibility. He also explains the role of city planners in urban reforms and in managing appreciation strategies.

The metropolitan area of Bari today has one million inhabitants. New regional legislation and the institution of a Strategic Plan have begun a process of urban transformation based on an innovative model of a compact, integrated and sustainable city. After the framework agreement with ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) in 2010 to implement projects to upgrade its building heritage, Bari is a candidate for the «Smart Cities & Communities » project and will launch its candidature for European Capital of Culture 2019. This text will analyse examples of valorisation of Bari's public building heritage with a focus on case studies of major strategic importance, with the aim of identifying possible ethical-aesthetic values in the relationship between the dynamics of urban transformation and architectural quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present economic context, property development is the most realistic opportunity to give new life to Italy's rich historic-artistic heritage. This article describes the planning, economic and social implications of the procedures for authorising development, which involve public administrations in an important decisionmaking process prior to the more typical phases of the actual project. The impossibility of divesting these properties has stimulated legislation that in turn initiates complex operations, which have effects not only for the property, but also in the regional context, involving the urban planning, construction, social and economic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Milan's urban growth was heavily influenced by the structure of the rail network for transporting goods and people. The great railway yards that used to service the industrial system have now lost their raison d'être after the relocation of industrial plants and the tertiary sector dynamics took over the city. These have become large abandoned brownfields or soon to be abandoned, totaling over 1,300,000 square meters, located mainly along the urban belt surrounding the city walls, often in densely built environments. Since 2005 these areas were the subject of several agreements between the City of Milan, State Railways SpA (FS) and the Lombardy Region, to examine various scenarios and the feasibility of their conversion, as confirmed in the draft of the new Territorial Government Plan (PGT), which identifies the Areas of Urban Transformation. Scenarios and assumptions that, in the current revision of the PGT, must approach the strategic role of this rich heritage from an environmental regeneration and valorization perspective extended to urban and metropolitan scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the campo of San Pietro di Castello from its mythologized origins to the Renaissance, paying particular attention to the architectural and political forces that shaped it. Although San Pietro was Venice's cathedral from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries, civic leaders marginalized the site, which incarnated the contentious relationship between the Roman Church and the Venetian republic. The essay places the campo at the center of inquiry because the episcopal complex's significance is best discerned through diachronic analysis of the urban landscape. The building activities of its medieval and Quattrocento patrons generated a heterogeneous campo that incorporated morphological elements from two Venetian urbanistic types: the parish campo and the monastic island. Its sixteenth-century patriarchs created a new architectural vision of the campo, contesting its slippage from the center of Venetian life and forging a distinctive ensemble that differs markedly from the better-known piazzas at San Marco and Rialto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pescara is a "young" city, that perhaps still participate, in part, to the underdevelopment of southern Italy, but since a few years this urban center represents the coupling to the Adriatic development model, creating a weld with the "third Italy". This is the position and the interpretative key of the reasons for the growth of Pescara, a rural and military village that, without renouncing to the contributions of the traditional sectors, opened itself with enthusiasm to the industry, the market and the first forms of tourism; the city broke down the ancient fortifications and was projected towards the river - which became the port - and the pine forest, to reach the beach and the woods for the new recreational needs; this new urban center began to integrate its production with Castellammare. Shortly, Pescara built, during the end of the last century, the foundations for the conquest of the urban hegemony, in terms of population and services, along the middle Adriatic sea, beyond the Abruzzo administrative boundaries. So we can see a situation that evolves all the time with problems and imbalances, with increasing force and with the ability to mobilize all available resources and opportunities, if we watch this from a more detached point of view in order to insert the city dynamics at the mouth of the Pescara river in the regional and national level and if we adopt an appropriate method of comparison. Pescara, certainly, has many aspects of evolution in this direction: from industrial and commercial city became an interregional and international metropolitan node - thanks to new relationships with the opposite side of the Adriatic -, increasing its value in the tourism market. Pescara is not currently a tourism attraction of "pleasure" for foreigners, but it is an important business center for them. However It maintains importance, for the hinterland inhabitants, as summer resort destination for a touring day. In fact it is the only center in the region which is equipped with the facilities of a modern business city, but combined, and "sweetened" by the pleasures of a holiday destination (weather, events, nightlife, waterfront restaurants, etc.). It's the place where all the tourist routes, to discover the region, start or end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the increasing focus on mega-events studies, in parallel to the growing interest demonstrated by local administrators and European cities towards hallmark events, the article aims to analyse this new trend and existing relationship between the regular policies and rise of new forms of urban management. It deals with Italy as a case study: since the 1990s several Italian cities have been systematically participating in competitions for mega-events in order to initiate development projects. More precisely, the article focuses on Turin, which is the first Italian city to have embraced this strategy systematically. The analysis of this case-study allows us to highlight a rise of a profound change within trends of mega-events: mega events have started to lose their main features -- such as ephemerality, exceptionality and occasionality and have turned into something close to the ordinary urban practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the challenges of balancing historic preservation with urban development in cities such as Rome, Italy, where sites of archaeological or historical interest are ubiquitous. The building of a subway line designed to pass through the center of Rome is cited as an example. Although it was dug 100 feet below street level, to avoid disturbing ancient ruins, proposed entrances to the subway have been blocked due to archaeological concerns. Arguments that a subway with no stops is useless, and that a living city should not be turned into a museum, are noted.

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Copyright of Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais is the property of Centro de Estudos Sociais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)