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Urban regeneration programs involve a series of intricate activities that utilize human, material, and financial resources, executed at varying times and in diverse manners. Within this complex scenario, a major challenge lies in effectively managing concurrent developments across multiple buildings and infrastructure projects, while also harmonizing the interests of all parties engaged in urban regeneration initiatives. This paper introduces a multi-step strategy designed to enhance and streamline urban management amid the multifaceted decision-making processes characteristic of urban regeneration efforts. Specifically, the multi-criteria decision-making model ELECTRE TRI-B is employed to sort the array of basic tasks within a complex transformation endeavor into priority groups based on various evaluative criteria. To ascertain the significance of these criteria and rank each task according to the interests of the stakeholders likely to be impacted, a panel of specialists, including construction experts, economists, and environmental assessors, is convened. Following this, project actions are organized in a Gantt chart reflecting the construction priority determined by the evaluation model. This approach facilitated the temporal organization of master plan activities, incorporating insights from a broad spectrum of experts including municipal technical staff, professionals, and the community at large. The findings indicate that this comprehensive and interactive approach to performance measurement enabled the handling of extensive datasets and the refinement of financial, economic, environmental, and social resources, all while adhering to logical constraints and urban policy demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a decision-making model for assessing the sustainability of urban plans and programmes to envision long-term transformation scenarios through the development of consistency matrices. The tool was tested in a real case study, which is the Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Revision of the General Municipal Plan of the City of Turin (Italy). The changes that have taken place in recent years have highlighted the need for more flexible, dynamic, and streamlined tools that can help the revision of plans and programmes, which are capable also of considering the citizen's needs. The decision-making model provided in this paper was structured into five phases: normative framing of the environmental assessment procedures; spatial analysis by structures; consistency analysis of conformity between the objectives of the technical proposal of the preliminary draft and the superordinate and coordinated planning; monitoring of the technical proposal through the employment of key indicators; and the definition of guidelines for the General Regulatory Plan of the City of Turin. The tool presented in this work can support planners, municipal technicians, and general public administrations, both in the planning and assessment processes to design and implement sustainable policy recommendations capable of tackling the increasing complexity of urban transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper illustrates the development of an evaluation model for supporting the decision-making process related to an urban regeneration intervention. In particular, the study proposes an original multi-methodological approach, which combines SWOT Analysis, Stakeholders Analysis and PROMETHEE method for the evaluation of alternative renewal strategies of an urban area in Northern Italy. The article also describes the work carried out within an experts’ panel that has been organized for validating the structuring of the decision problem and for evaluating the criteria of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • An extended CBA to compare energy retrofit strategies for NZED is proposed. • The study considers energy performance, life cycle costs and extra-economic impacts. • The SROI outcomes the best performing strategy. • The proposed approach is validated through its application to a real case study. • Sensitivity analyses to test the decision-making process reliability are performed. Abstract The European Union issued several directives in the field of energy efficiency which impact on the building sector in order to avoid a further increase of energy consumption and to mitigate climate change. In particular, the recast of the European Energy Performance of Buildings supports the improvement of buildings energy performance and introduces a new target, the Nearly Zero-Energy Building (NZEB) concept. Nowadays, the European Commission is shifting attention towards the district level and post-carbon cities and Net Zero-Energy District (NZED) targets are emerging. In order to evaluate alternative strategies for the construction of NZED, according to a socio-economic point of view, different aspects and impacts have to be considered. This paper studies the NZED concept and proposes an evaluation method developed from the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) in order to include extra-economic benefits generated by the project. The proposed approach is applied on a real case concerning the energy requalification of a NZED in Turin (Italy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The joint revealed and stated preferences model assesses the users' preferences in terms of urban parks. • The discrete choice experiment (DCE) collects data about new park features. • The travel cost method (TCM) examines the correlation between the new park and the existing green areas. • The results guide the choice of decision-makers about the functions to be located. • The integrated approach contributes to determine sustainable urban or peri‑urban park strategies. Inclusive and participatory decision-making is a sustainable option for governments and decision-makers to support real transformation and planning of policies and actions. Investigating and gathering the various views and opinions of stakeholders and citizens is particularly effective because it opens up a range of possibilities in co-constructing the city of the future. Among urban areas requiring planning, Urban Green Infrastructures (UGIs) represent spaces designed to improve the character of neighborhoods, as well as to increase the well-being of users. To achieve these goals, planners should adopt a design approach in which UGIs projects are shaped by local community concerns rather than by market conventions in urban design. Focusing on green recreational areas, this study employs an integrated approach combining Revealed (RP) and Stated Preferences (SP) to investigate citizens' preferences regarding urban parks. In particular, the experiment combines Travel Cost Method (TCM) and Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) for supporting a requalification project in an ex-industrial area of Turin (Italy). In this way, it was possible to understand which facilities can contribute to increasing the citizens' well-being and the overall efficiency of the UGIs provision and maintenance. The proposed methodology represents an operational and replicable procedure to support different renewal projects in which citizens' opinions are crucial for developing long-term sustainable socio-ecological plans and actions. [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]

In this paper we deal with an urban and territorial planning problem by applying the Non Additive Robust Ordinal Regression (NAROR). NAROR is a recent extension of the Robust Ordinal Regression family of Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding methods to the Choquet integral preference model which permits to represent interaction between considered criteria through the use of a set of non-additive weights called capacity or fuzzy measure. The use of NAROR permits the Decision Maker (DM) to give preference information in terms of preferences between pairs of alternatives with which she is familiar, and relative importance and interaction of considered criteria. The basic idea of NAROR is to consider the whole set of capacities that are compatible with the preference information given by the DM. In fact, the recommendation supplied by NAROR is expressed in terms of necessary preferences, in case an alternative is preferred to another for all compatible capacities, and of possible preferences, in case an alternative is preferred to another for at least one compatible capacity. In the considered case study, several sites for the location of a landfill are analyzed and compared through the use of the NAROR on the basis of different criteria, such as presence of population, hydrogeological risk, interferences on transport infrastructures and economic cost. This paper is the first application of NAROR to a real-world problem, even if not already with real DMs, but with a panel of experts simulating the decision process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to propose a multi-methodological approach for assessing the sustainability of urban projects. The proposed framework has the objective of addressing the different dimensions involved in the analysis (economic, environmental, social, technological, cultural, etc.), following the subsequent phases for the definition of the projects (from a very general masterplan to more detailed preliminary projects). Design/methodology/approach -- The multi-methodological approach is organized according to subsequent steps, involving the application of different evaluation methods, namely SWOT analysis, multicriteria analysis, discounted cash flow analysis and sensitivity analysis. With the aim of better illustrating the proposed approach, the method is applied on a real case concerning the project of a new boulevard in the city of Skopje. Findings -- The proposed approach resulted to be successful in structuring the complex planning context and in increasing and improving the information for the project, thus acting as a learning process. Originality/value -- The paper is based on the experimentation of an hybrid approach for addressing planning process. The multi-methodological framework can be useful in supporting decision making process in the domain of urban projects. In this sense, the proposed framework is able to communicate the planners', designers' and decision maker's perspectives, to enhance transparency in the decision process and thus to increase acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The aim of the paper is to assess an urban transformation project in Italy, from a sustainability point of view. Taking into consideration alternative solutions for the project (zero option, initial project and final project), the paper highlights the most important elements for the sustainability evaluation and the best solution for the transformation. Designlmethodology/approach The sustainability assessment of the transformation project is performed using a particular multicriteria analysis, the analytic network process (ANP). Multi-criteria techniques provide a useful support when a choice must be thade among several alternatives with different objectives and criteria and also allow one to include tangible and intangible factors in the evaluation. The ANP is used to derive relative priority scales of absolute numbers from individual judgments and it offers a general framework to deal with complex decisions which provides a comparison of the different options. Findings The priority list of the alternatives gives a great deal of importance to the final project, with respect to the other possibilities. With reference to the most relevant criteria for the sustainability of the project, the problems related to energy efficiency, the aspects concerning the landmark and the new services for the inhabitants were given the most importance. Practical implications The procedure described in the paper is suitable for dealing with the complexity of the problem, in a transparent way, taking into consideration the multiplicity of the aspects involved and the presence of several stakeholders in the decision-making process. Originality/value This study is one of the first examples of the application of the ANP to the field of urban transformation at an international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An integrated framework is developed to envision future sustainable scenarios of transformation. • Quali-quantitative methods are combined into an overall evaluation methodology. • The multi-level methodology is performed for a downgrounded area. • The evaluation framework supports the design process in a structured way. Smart cities and sustainable neighbourhoods are increasingly gaining more attention within policy decisions on urban transformations. In this context, Decision-Makers (DMs) need evaluation methodologies able to support the definition of policies and actions for the future of cities, that focus on a higher degree of life quality and new needs. In this paper, an integrated framework is proposed which combines the Stakeholder Analysis, the STEEP and SWOT analyses (STEEP + SWOT), the Scenario Building and the Multicriteria Decision Analysis approach (MCDA) which can be used to envision sustainable future scenarios for an underdeveloped area in Northern Italy. The adoption of integrated methodologies facilitates the analysis of each phase of the decision problem, from its early stage to the selection of the most suitable scenario according to the context and the stakeholders engaged. With this perspective, the present research is a guiding tool for DMs for the design of transformation/regeneration scenarios with a long-term perspective of sustainable cities and neighbourhoods. From the results obtained, it is possible to build new and unexpected scenarios by combining the main opportunities and strengths of most suitable alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• MC-SDSS is suitable for site selection and complex decision-making processes. • AHP and FAHP comparison shows their differences in supporting site selection. • Sensitivity analysis is performed to test the robustness of the evaluation. • The development of suitability maps supports the concertation among stakeholders. Integrated evaluation methods have started to gain more and more importance for supporting the decision-making process in the field of urban and territorial planning, contributing to the consideration of the multidimensionality of the elements involved and the multiple feedback of stakeholders. In the context of infrastructure location in cities, spatial multicriteria analysis is becoming increasingly relevant, thanks to its ability to synthesize the full range of aspects, through Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), and for the consideration of the spatial dimension, thanks to its integration of GIS data. The case study selected to test this mixed method is the new healthcare project for the metropolitan city of Turin (Italy). The decision where to locate a new healthcare facility is highly complex since many aspects have to be considered, spanning from technical to social factors, and from locational to environmental elements. This choice case study aims at highlighting the role of spatial multicriteria analysis to support Decision Makers (DMs) in the identification of suitable locations for urban facilities and shows the potential of the approach for increasing the participation of different stakeholders thanks to a simple visual representation of data and results. In particular, the research makes use of Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP (FAHP). The comparison of the two approaches shows that they can both be used for identifying suitable locations for urban infrastructures. However, this research demonstrates that AHP should be preferred in the case of the high relevance of all the criteria considered, whereas FAHP introduces more uncertainty in criteria weights assignment and reduces the burden of many spatial analyses with GIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A resilient city includes multiple energy carriers, high-efficiency infrastructure, lower resource demand to decarbonize and sustain the urban system in accordance with the Paris Agreement, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the various recovery plans following the COVID-19 pandemic period. To achieve these goals, a key role is played by all urban sectors, which can reduce environmental impacts and accelerate the green transition at larger scale. Intervening on a district scale obviously requires the evaluation of different aspects, taking into account both economic and non-economic criteria, as well as different points of view, involving all stakeholders. This paper proposes a multi-step evaluation procedure that extends the European manual-based Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) to include the extra-economic benefits and the stakeholders' opinion in the evaluation, according to the COmpoSIte Model for Assessment (COSIMA) method. This is the first application of COSIMA in the urban design sectors (i.e. buildings, water, public lighting, transportation and waste management) where different sustainable measures for a real case study located in Turin (Italy) were compared to define the most suitable transformation scenario according to multiple criteria. The results have shown how invasive scenarios allow achieving the greatest benefits, despite the huge initial costs of realization. • Decarbonizing the urban system is a priority nowadays. • Considering an urban regeneration process all urban sectors is necessary. • COSIMA proposes a standardized approach to evaluate projects at the district level. • The multi-step approach evaluates energy, environmental, social performances. • Sectors considered are residential buildings, water, transport, waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]