Toward resilient cities: assessing urban resilience performance using a System Dynamics Model-based approach

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Addressing social sustainability in urban regeneration processes. An application of the social multi-criteria evaluation

The concept of sustainability is widely seen as fundamental to set up urban and territorial transformations. Sustainable development is a multidimensional and multi-perspective process that deals with the environmental, economic, and social dimensions, with the aim to find a balance among these. Despite this growing attention to sustainability the social perspective has been the less explored of these dimensions and only recently it is receiving consideration due the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim at creating sustainable and inclusive cities and communities. In the SDGs, specific attention is focused on the improvement of the quality of life of inhabitants through specific actions dedicated to the valorization of cultural resources, to the protection of the environment, and also to promote the involvement of the local communities in setting policies and programs. The final objective is defining projects based on the social needs shared by the communities. This paper aims at exploring the social sustainability related to urban regeneration processes with particular attention to social cohesion and community engagement. Six different urban regeneration strategies, developed for the regeneration of an urban area located in Northern Italy and based on social housing interventions, have been evaluated in accordance with their social impacts on the stakeholders involved. The paper proposes a multi-methodological approach based on the combination of the stakeholder analysis with the NAIADE (Novel Approach to Imprecise Assessment and Decision Environments) methodology, a particular type of Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation. The stakeholder analysis has been applied to identify the actors to involve in the evaluation, whereas the NAIADE methodology has been implemented for the selection of the most preferable strategy. This method allowed the assessment of the different strategies through the comparison and the mediation between the technical and the social rankings, thus considering the stakeholder preferences in the final evaluation. The final result is coherent with the initial purpose and it demonstrates that the inclusion of the stakeholder is fundamental for the achievement of a consensus solution

Addressing social sustainability in urban regeneration processes. An application of the social multi-criteria evaluation

The concept of sustainability is widely seen as fundamental to set up urban and territorial transformations. Sustainable development is a multidimensional and multi-perspective process that deals with the environmental, economic, and social dimensions, with the aim to find a balance among these. Despite this growing attention to sustainability the social perspective has been the less explored of these dimensions and only recently it is receiving consideration due the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim at creating sustainable and inclusive cities and communities. In the SDGs, specific attention is focused on the improvement of the quality of life of inhabitants through specific actions dedicated to the valorization of cultural resources, to the protection of the environment, and also to promote the involvement of the local communities in setting policies and programs. The final objective is defining projects based on the social needs shared by the communities. This paper aims at exploring the social sustainability related to urban regeneration processes with particular attention to social cohesion and community engagement. Six different urban regeneration strategies, developed for the regeneration of an urban area located in Northern Italy and based on social housing interventions, have been evaluated in accordance with their social impacts on the stakeholders involved. The paper proposes a multi-methodological approach based on the combination of the stakeholder analysis with the NAIADE (Novel Approach to Imprecise Assessment and Decision Environments) methodology, a particular type of Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation. The stakeholder analysis has been applied to identify the actors to involve in the evaluation, whereas the NAIADE methodology has been implemented for the selection of the most preferable strategy. This method allowed the assessment of the different strategies through the comparison and the mediation between the technical and the social rankings, thus considering the stakeholder preferences in the final evaluation. The final result is coherent with the initial purpose and it demonstrates that the inclusion of the stakeholder is fundamental for the achievement of a consensus solution

A System Dynamics Model and Analytic Network Process: An Integrated Approach to Investigate Urban Resilience

During the last decade, the concept of urban resilience has been increasingly implemented in urban planning, with the main aim to design urban development strategies. Urban resilience is a multi-dimensional and dynamic concept. When applied to urban planning, it consists of studying cities as complex socio-economic systems. Municipalities are currently working to undertake appropriate actions to enrich the resilience of cities. Moreover, several difficulties concern the evaluation of the impacts over time of the strategies designed to enhance urban resilience. The present paper proposes an integrated approach based on the System Dynamics Model (SDM) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP). The objective of this research is to describe the method and to illustrate its application to the area called Basse di Stura, located in the city of Turin, Italy. The method is applied to evaluate the possible impacts of two different urban scenarios in terms of the change of urban resilience performance over time. The final result is represented by an index that describes urban resilience performance

Decision-making tools for urban regeneration processes: from Stakeholders Analysis to Stated Preference Methods

Urban regeneration operations are connected to the creation of a multiplicity of benefits, both economic and extra-economic, that range from the increase in the environmental quality to the amelioration of the urban image, from the valorization of the cultural heritage to the creation of economic development processes. The articles aims at proposing an integrated evaluation approach for addressing decision problems in the context of urban regeneration operations. Starting from the real case of the regeneration programme of the city of Collegno (Italy), the contribution proposes an original evaluation model based on the combined use of Stakeholders Analysis and Stated Preference Methods. The results of the research shows the people’s perception about the social value of urban regeneration programme and their Willingness To Pay for specific transformation operations

Re-Thinking Detroit: A Multicriteria-Based Approach for Adaptive Reuse for the Corktown District

The paper addresses the paradigm of adaptive reuse with a specific focus on issues related to the evaluation and the decision-making processes in this context. In more detail, this paper aims at recognising the main gaps that concern the evaluation process associated with adaptive reuse and providing some points of reflection and a preliminary methodological proposal to evaluate transformation scenarios related to adaptive reuse, through a multidimensional and multi-objective perspective. According to these purposes, this paper describes the implementation of the pillars of adaptive reuse to re-think the Corktown District of the city of Detroit, underlying through a real case study the complexity, the multidimensionality, and the multi-objective challenges of this concept, when implemented in urban planning and the revitalization of historic buildings. According to this scenario, the present paper focuses on issues related to managing the complexity and the multidimensionality of the decision process, under the analysis and evaluation of alternative adaptive-reuse strategies. This research, thus, proposes the application of the Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) technique, based on the Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT), to evaluate and compare different strategic scenarios to re-think the Corktown District of the city of Detroit, according to the principles of adaptive reuse. The final result is a multidimensional evaluation that provides a final ranking of the different proposed alternatives, in order to support the decision-making to select the most suitable transformative scenario, according to the initial purposes of the project

VALUTAZIONE DEL VALORE ECONOMICO DEI BENI CULTURALI IMMOBILI PER LA LORO RESILIENZA: IL CASO DI STUDIO DELLA CHIESA DI SANTA MARIA DEI MIRACOLI

Climate change, natural disasters, and human activity subject cultural heritage to several shocks and disturbances. The interest in risk reduction and management has increased significantly over the last decades, including for cultural assets. To protect and value them for future generations, the current issue is the increasing of their resilience. This research work is related to the European project ResCult - Increasing Resilience of Cultural Heritage: A Supporting Decision Tool for the Safeguarding of Cultural Assets . This paper aims on the one hand to illustrate the state of the art on risk assessment in the European context, highlighting its fragmentation, and on the other hand, to determine the economic value expressed by the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice (Italy) through the Travel Cost Method (TCM), as one of the components value to support risk assessment of Cultural Heritage. This study considers how the suggested strategy may be applied on a European level

VALUTAZIONE DEL VALORE ECONOMICO DEI BENI CULTURALI IMMOBILI PER LA LORO RESILIENZA: IL CASO DI STUDIO DELLA CHIESA DI SANTA MARIA DEI MIRACOLI

Climate change, natural disasters, and human activity subject cultural heritage to several shocks and disturbances. The interest in risk reduction and management has increased significantly over the last decades, including for cultural assets. To protect and value them for future generations, the current issue is the increasing of their resilience. This research work is related to the European project "ResCult - Increasing Resilience of Cultural Heritage: A Supporting Decision Tool for the Safeguarding of Cultural Assets". This paper aims on the one hand to illustrate the state of the art on risk assessment in the European context, highlighting its fragmentation, and on the other hand, to determine the economic value expressed by the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice (Italy) through the Travel Cost Method (TCM), as one of the components value to support risk assessment of Cultural Heritage. this study considers how the suggested strategy may be applied on a European level

Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Mining Basins: An Application in the Piedmont Region (Italy)

Mining activities impact on the territorial system in various ways, affecting its environmental and socio-economic components. Specific evaluation tools can support decision-making processes in the context of the sustainable planning and management of mining activities. Within the evaluation procedures of mining activities, a growing interest in the analysis of Ecosystem Services (ES) is emerging. ES refer to the benefits that the natural system delivers to society, linking the health of ecosystems and human well-being. Starting from a real-world case related to the adoption of the Regional Plan of Mining Activities (PRAE) of the Piedmont region (Northern Italy), the paper aims to explore the ES valuation by considering three different mining quarries. The state of the art of the basins is compared with alternative planning scenarios from the point of view of the ES produced. The valuation is developed through GIS and the Simulsoil software, detecting the biophysical benefits produced and estimating their economic performance. The simulation results can be used to support the formulation of planning strategies, estimating the trade-offs in terms of competitive land-use values. The study also demonstrates that the integration of ES into Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) can produce a comprehensive impact assessment of a mining project, guaranteeing the protection and valorisation of the environmental system