Mind the gap! Global cities and ordinary cities in the planning perspective

This paper presents a critical debate about the extreme selectivity through which the existing body of literature identifies the critical factors in urban development and competitiveness. It highlights the need to establish policies aimed at “ordinary cities†(Amine Graham, 1997) and “ordinary geographies†(Jonas e Ward, 2007). By analyzing the case of Rome, Italy, the paper explores the consequences of such literature for planning choices, especially for those cities that are not supported by a mature system of governance. It is well established that cities and urban regions are considered the most significant organizational and social units in the post-industrial era. The academic focus on urban regions was a result of the convergence between studies on competitiveness and disciplines like Regional Economy and Economic Geography, which tended to focus on the relationship between post-industrial capitalism and the process of regionalization. Since the first studies on industrial de-verticalization and on emerging patterns of production localization, the literature has increasingly related the economic success of firms to specific characters of territories, including face-to-face contacts, knowledge spill over and relationships based on trust. All cities, then, are framed to look like the leaders of the global urban hierarchy: Global City Regions and Mega City Regions, large territories combining hard and soft infrastructures, socializing spaces, multi-culturality, talent, tolerance; cities offering a network structure made up of Marshall nodes of production. The rigidity of current conceptions of urban competitiveness, supported also by international organizations (OCDE, 2006; Territorial Agenda, 2007), often leads to negative consequences for urban planning policies in cities that are not yet supported by a developed system of governance. This is the case for Rome, where planning policy has followed guidelines proposed by existing literature. The article argues that the oversimplification of urban development and competitiveness can result in planning policies divorced from the real issues, thus causing a unique set of social and environmental consequences.

Ambiente e Geografia Economica. Un conflitto superabile?

È ormai noto come l’ambiente non sia da tempo tra i temi prioritari della geografia economica. Non solo, in generale, la disciplina si occupa poco della questione ambientale ma, quando lo fa, si tratta spesso di contributi tecnici ed empirici che non si misurano con il fine della teorizzazione del rapporto società/gruppo umano/ambiente. Alcune correnti nuove sembrano manifestarsi recentemente nella letteratura internazionale. Vi sono, infatti, parti della geografia economica che sembrano abbandonare la visione «dura» della geografia per impegnarsi in questa direzione. In questo contributo viene offerta una breve ricostruzione di questo percorso.For a long time now the environment has not been a central topic in economic geography, especially in the mainstream of economic geography. Not only our discipline has a small interest in the research on environmental issues but its approach is often technical and empirical. We miss one of the most interesting topic of these decades, the relationship between social groups and environment. Some scholars, out from the orthodoxy, have proposed new perspectives about nature and society. The aim of this paper is to propose a short discussion about these proposals and their possibility to improve the geographical approach to the environmental problems

La giustizia ambientale in Italia. Una riflessione introduttiva

La giustizia ambientale è un concetto non ancora del tutto condiviso in letteratura, nonostante una storia non proprio recente. L’indeterminatezza si deve probabilmente al fatto che esso si compone di altri concetti già complessi, come giustizia (sociale) e ambiente, per cui la possibilità di farne un principio ispiratore dell’agenda e della pratica politica dipende da come si sceglie di definirlo. Il contributo ha l’obiettivo di introdurre la discussione sulla utilità dello studio della giustizia ambientale in Italia nella convinzione che, pur con modalità diverse rispetto agli Stati Uniti, esso possa essere estremamente fruttuoso. Una sua migliore comprensione ed una verifica di contesto nel caso italiano potrebbero infatti contribuire sia allo sforzo complessivo di ridefinire il quadro teorico nel quale iscrivere il rapporto società/ambiente, di cui si sente il bisogno, in particolare in geografia, sia nel determinare l’evoluzione degli orientamenti politici e operativi

Mind the gap! Global cities and ordinary cities in the planning perspective

This paper presents a critical debate about the extreme selectivity through which the existing body of literature identifies the critical factors in urban development and competitiveness. It highlights the need to establish policies aimed at "ordinary cities" (Amine Graham, 1997) and "ordinary geographies" (Jonas e Ward, 2007). By analyzing the case of Rome, Italy, the paper explores the consequences of such literature for planning choices, especially for those cities that are not supported by a mature system of governance. It is well established that cities and urban regions are considered the most significant organizational and social units in the post-industrial era. The academic focus on urban regions was a result of the convergence between studies on competitiveness and disciplines like Regional Economy and Economic Geography, which tended to focus on the relationship between post-industrial capitalism and the process of regionalization. Since the first studies on industrial de-verticalization and on emerging patterns of production localization, the literature has increasingly related the economic success of firms to specific characters of territories, including face-to-face contacts, knowledge spill over and relationships based on trust. All cities, then, are framed to look like the leaders of the global urban hierarchy: Global City Regions and Mega City Regions, large territories combining hard and soft infrastructures, socializing spaces, multi-culturality, talent, tolerance; cities offering a network structure made up of Marshall nodes of production. The rigidity of current conceptions of urban competitiveness, supported also by international organizations (OCDE, 2006; Territorial Agenda, 2007), often leads to negative consequences for urban planning policies in cities that are not yet supported by a developed system of governance. This is the case for Rome, where planning policy has followed guidelines proposed by existing literature. The article argues that the oversimplification of urban development and competitiveness can result in planning policies divorced from the real issues, thus causing a unique set of social and environmental consequences

Complexity in action: Untangling latent relationships between land quality, economic structures and socio-spatial patterns in Italy

Land quality, a key economic capital supporting local development, is affected by biophysical and anthropogenic factors. Taken as a relevant attribute of economic systems, land quality has shaped the territorial organization of any given region influencing localization of agriculture, industry and settlements. In regions with long-established human-landscape interactions, such as the Mediterranean basin, land quality has determined social disparities and polarization in the use of land, reflecting the action of geographical gradients based on elevation and population density. The present study investigates latent relationships within a large set of indicators profiling local communities and land quality on a fine-grained resolution scale in Italy with the aim to assess the potential impact of land quality on the regional socioeconomic structure. The importance of land quality gradients in the socioeconomic configuration of urban and rural regions was verified analyzing the distribution of 149 socioeconomic and environmental indicators organized in 5 themes and 17 research dimensions. Agriculture, income, education and labour market variables discriminate areas with high land quality from areas with low land quality. While differential land quality in peri-urban areas may reflect conflicts between competing actors, moderate (or low) quality of land in rural districts is associated with depopulation, land abandonment, subsidence agriculture, unemployment and low educational levels. We conclude that the socioeconomic profile of local communities has been influenced by land quality in a different way along urban-rural gradients. Policies integrating environmental and socioeconomic measures are required to consider land quality as a pivotal target for sustainable development. Regional planning will benefit from an in-depth understanding of place-specific relationships between local communities and the environment

Dalla regione Lazio alle questioni nazionali. Elementi di lettura del problema dei confin(ati) interni

Il paper contribuisce alla ricerca del gruppo AgeI “Territori amministrati” sulle nuove possibili forme di riorganizzazione amministrativa del nostro territorio, a partire dalla ricostruzione degli effetti e dei modelli generati nelle regioni italiane in seguito alla legge 56/2014. Si offre dunque un’analisi degli effetti prodotti sulla regione Lazio mostrando come la legge abbia prodotto un ulteriore aggravio dei già squilibrati rapporto socio-spaziale e istituzioni interni alla regione

Global performance index for integrated management system: GPI-IMS

Background: The present work starts from a literature review of the evolution of Integrated Management Systems (IMSs), considering different points of view and standards: quality, environmental, occupational health and safety, sustainability and social issues. Even if the benefits are possible, there is not a common approach and a clear link between the integration of management systems and business performance, in particular considering safety performance. Methods: The present study analyzes the application of Risk Assessment in order to realize the integration of management systems. The main objective is to provide a tool for an integrated evaluation of all company performances, starting from the definition of some Key Performance Indicators—KPIs— proposed for a particular case study, even if their choice is not the core of the paper. The assessment team members on the basis of their knowledge, experience and useful literature, could choose the right KPIs for the specific application, able to take a picture of the current state and to suggest a possible recommended action of improving. The proposed Risk Assessment approach is an integration of modern management techniques: Integrated Management System and Improving Cycle DMAIC. Results: The new method, called the Global Performance Index for Integrated Management System—GPI-IMS, has been applied to a real case study in the logistic field in order to evaluate its goodness and possible generalization. Conclusions: The proposed method allows to define the requirements that any company must have to perform the best. The role of the assessment team is very important to evaluate the global performance of the company and to suggest the corrective actions to be adopted