Values Spaces Migration. Appraisal scenarios for an intercultural society

Incessanti flussi migratori si muovono verso nazioni o città in cui trovare condizioni di vita migliori sospinti da sperequazioni economiche, instabilità politiche e sociali, conflitti bellici ed emergenze ambientali, e generano perturbazioni, reali o percepite, sull’organizzazione sociale, ed economica dei territori. I mutamenti dei sistemi valoriali, sociali, spaziali ed economici conseguenti ai flussi migratori sono stati dibattuti durante il convegno SIEV ‘Valori Spazi Migrazioni. Identità e alterità nella citta multiculturale’, che si è svolto nel mese di ottobre del 2020. Lo studio di questi fenomeni coinvolge numerose scienze sociali rispetto alle quali la comunità italiana di studiosi di Estimo e Valutazioni può fornire il proprio contributo originale. Questo articolo si propone di delineare un quadro delle possibili intersezioni tra la disciplina estimativa e altre scienze come Filosofia del linguaggio, Etno-psicologia, Filosofia del diritto, Geografia, Urbanistica, Progettazione architettonica, che possono condurre verso la costruzione di un comune dominio consensuale linguistico e di linee di ricerca convergenti per indagare la complessità delle tematiche inerenti alle migrazioni. Alcune intersezioni riguardano il riconoscimento delle pluralità di identità e dei diritti dei migranti, la sostenibilità e l’equità multiculturale, il ruolo del linguaggio nella costruzione delle relazioni con l’Altro e con i valori economici (valore d’uso privato, valore di scambio e valore d’uso sociale). A partire dal ruolo del linguaggio nella società multiculturale, può essere tracciata una ‘geografia della significazione’ che è strettamente interrelata ad altre geografie, quelle delle politiche, dei diritti, del lavoro, dei conflitti sociali e dei valori immobiliari. Sono questi i contesti spaziali e sociali in cui sono state elaborate alcune interessanti ricerche economico-estimative, anche se non si tratta ancora di un corpus di studi in grado di rappresentare in modo sistemico le differenze presenti nel territorio nazionale italiano (ad es. tra città/regioni settentrionali e meridionali). Rimangono, quindi, completamente da esplorare le possibilità di avviare sia ricerche in collaborazione e contaminazione con altre scienze sociali sulla necessità di inclusione sociale e di interculturalità, sia il rinnovamento del paradigma interpretativo e degli strumenti operativi della disciplina estimativa per rispondere alla domanda di stime in ambito immobiliare e di modelli di valutazione a supporto dei processi decisionali connessi ai fenomeni migratori.Incessant migratory flows move towards nations or cities where they can find better living conditions, driven by economic inequalities, political and social instability, war conflicts and environmental emergencies, and generate real or perceived perturbations in the social and economic organization of territories. The changes in value, social, spatial and economic systems resulting from migration flows were debated during the SIEV conference 'Values Spaces Migrations. Identity and Otherness in the Multicultural City', which took place in October 2020. The study of these phenomena involves many social sciences to which the Italian community of Estimate and Valuation scholars can provide its original contribution. This article aims to outline a picture of the possible intersections between the discipline of estimation and other sciences such as Philosophy of Language, Ethno-psychology, Philosophy of Law, Geography, Urban Planning, Architectural Design, which can lead towards the construction of a common linguistic consensual domain and convergent lines of research to investigate the complexity of issues related to migration. Some intersections concern the recognition of the plurality of identities and the rights of migrants, multicultural sustainability and equity, the role of language in the construction of relationships with the Other and with economic values (private use value, exchange value and social use value). Beginning with the role of language in multicultural society, a 'geography of signification' can be traced that is closely interrelated to other geographies, those of politics, rights, labor, social conflict and property values. These are the spatial and social contexts in which some interesting economic-estimative research has been carried out, even if it is not yet a body of studies capable of representing in a systematic way the differences present in the Italian national territory (e.g. between northern and southern cities/regions). Therefore, the possibilities of initiating both collaborative research and contamination with other social sciences on the need for social inclusion and interculturality, as well as the renewal of the interpretative paradigm and of the operational tools of the estimative discipline to respond to the demand for estimates in the real estate field and for valuation models to support decision-making processes connected to migratory phenomena, remain to be fully explored

Energy Communities in urban areas: Comparison of energy strategy and economic feasibility in Italy and Spain

Energy communities using renewable energy sources directly contributes to reduction of climate-change gas emissions and energy consumption in the European Union. In addition, energy communities enable citizens to transform from (passive) consumers to prosumers (active consumers and producers) and to play a proactive role in the deployment of energy transition in urban areas. As the transposition of European rules about energy communities into the national laws of EU Member States is very articulated and differentiated, this study proposes a framework to analyze and compare regulatory and financial instruments. This framework is applied to the analysis of the case of Italy and Spain, as representative of European states in which collective actions in the energy sector are not very common, with the aim of highlighting the main critical issues affecting the effectiveness of energy transition strategies and assessing the economic feasibility for energy communities. Analyzing regulations and procedures, including at the local level, it appears that municipalities play an important role as promoters of initiatives among citizen communities, while complex bureaucratic procedure is the most critical issue in both countries and can significantly hinder the spread of energy communities. With respect to the different financial incentives available for the formation of energy communities in Italy and Spain, a few cases studies are hypothesized, calculating the most relevant cost-effectiveness indicators, e.g. Net Present Value. It turns out that a project with the same characteristics achieves greater economic feasibility in Italy than in Spain, depending on the type and size of incentives set by national laws, and, above all, that financial incentives are necessary to make the formation of energy communities cost-effective and thus to achieve direct citizen involvement in energy transition actions

The Financial Costs in Energy Efficient District. Alternative Scenarios from the Demo Sites of the CITyFiED Program

The European Union’s environmental policies actively promote the transition to a low-carbon society and to sustainable energy systems that improve people’s quality of life and do not negatively impact the natural environment. To achieve these goals, the European Union funded several programs to pilot energy efficiency measures for buildings and districts and, lately, launched the European Green Deal. The results of these experimentations have shown that often the economic feasibility of retrofitting interventions is not achieved without public grants. This contribution aims to analyze the influence of financial parameters on the profitability of projects of energy efficient districts. The study is based on the data from the demo sites of the CITyFiED program (Soma in Turkey and Laguna de Duero in Spain) that are reworked according to new several alternative scenarios, differentiated by cost financing and amount of public grants

Elementi critici e «casi-studio» della VIA delle infrastrutture viarie

The infrastructures in-form (or de-form) territorial systems, since they produce the structure which multiple interrelations are plotted on. The foundation of a consensual language dominion, which the social integration of environmental values is based on, can be obtained by going on with the epistemological renewal of the Science of evaluation (Rizzo 1972 e 1999). The EIA can harmonize environmental values with economic, ethic, aestetic, political and cultural values. The EIA analysis of two road-infrastructures (the Bridge on the straits of Messina and the railway Siracusa-Gela) pointed out that there is a communicative gap among political, juridical, administrative and estimative areas, and that there are also methodogical distortions, procedurals incohereance, epistemological incongruities and absence of rules

The urban rent in the multicultural city: retail shops, migrants and urban decline in the historic centre of Palermo

Changes in consumer shopping behavior and in retail spaces, such as shopping malls, department stores and e-commerce, have modified localization models of traditional retail shops, also affecting urban fabric and spatial distribution of urban rent. Even city centers have undergone significant transformations or even decline, especially if local economic system and real estate market are weak and recessionary. A significant amount of commercial properties may have long vacancy due to excess supply, since many traditional shops close their business because they are no longer competitive and, moreover, there is no immediate takeover by new tenants. The decline of central urban areas depends on the interaction of multiple economic, social and cultural factors, but it can be countered by urban policies oriented not only to physical redevelopment of urban fabric, but also to social cohesion and multiculturalism. Migrants bearers of varied cultural values, coming from different continents and settling permanently in the Italian cities, have rented some of these empty properties by locating retail shops specifically oriented to their own communities or also to the citizens needs. The presence of migrants contributes, indeed, to support the retail real estate demand, to mitigate the minus-valorization of real estate capital and also to contain the revenues contraction. This phenomenon has been analyzed in some streets of the historic centre of Palermo that are traditionally shopping areas and have become the privileged place for locating retail shops managed by immigrants

Cap Rate as the Interpretative Variable of the Urban Real Estate Capital Asset: A Comparison of Different Sub\u2010Market Definitions in Palermo, Italy

Real estate capital is in constant competition with other capital assets due to its different and complementary economic functions such as direct use, productive investment, and speculative investment. These features and the resulting opportunities cannot be easily deduced from direct observation of the real estate markets, so some further insights need to be carried out in order to highlight the relationship between prices, rents and performances. This study aims at providing a multifaceted perspective of a specific urban real estate market to overcome the difficulties arising from opacities and informative asymmetries that hinder the decision of investors, by facilitating the comparison of different options such as capital value, income and performance. Within the mass appraisal approach, the study proposes a methodology for the analysis of the cap rate, intended as the expression of profitability and liquidity of the urban real estate capital asset. The methodology is based on a detailed survey of a sample of the housing market data, collected within a structured database, supported by statistical and territorial analyses of the sample, in order to display the range of cap rates featuring each sub\u2010market, and the related distributions. The methodology is applied to a case study of nearly 1000 properties distributed in a vast urban area of the municipality of Palermo, Italy. The consistency of the relationships between the three variables has been tested with reference to two hypotheses about the sub\u2010market definition, which has been carried out by cluster and by neighbourhood

Cascade feed forward neural network-based model for air pollutants evaluation of single monitoring stations in urban areas

In this paper, air pollutants concentrations for N O2 , N O, N Ox and P M 10 in a single monitoring station are predicted using the data coming from other different monitoring stations located nearby. A cascade feed forward neural network based modeling is proposed. The main aim is to provide a methodology leading to the introduction of virtual monitoring station points consistent with the actual stations located in the city of Catania in Italy.

Public and Private Economic Feasibility of Green Areas as a Passive Energy Measure: A Case Study in the Mediterranean City of Trapani in Southern Italy

Green infrastructure in urban environments provides a wide range of ecological, social, aesthetic, and health co-benefits. Urban plant covers in particular contribute to improved outdoor environmental conditions that, in turn, influence the energy behavior of buildings and their indoor thermo-hygrometric comfort performance. Within this context, this study illustrates a methodology aimed at verifying the economic feasibility of alternative types of green areas for public and private stakeholders, which are analyzed as passive energy measures. Therefore, our methodology integrates approaches from different disciplines and consists of a microclimatic analysis of different vegetation scenarios and of the outdoor comfort level, an evaluation of the energy needs of a sample of houses, and an economic feasibility estimation considering different scenarios and public and private investors. The methodology is illustrated through its application to a suburban district of the Sicilian city of Trapani in the South of Italy, considered representative of Mediterranean climate conditions. Results showed significant differences between the scenario outcomes depending on the type of vegetation used in the green areas and put in evidence how economic feasibility for some stakeholders may be achieved in the management phase if adequate incentives equal to the planting cost are assumed

Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum essential oil prevented biofilm formation and showed antibacterial activity against planktonic and sessile bacterial cells

Essential oils from six different populations of Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum were compared for their antibiofilm properties. The six essential oils (A to F) were characterized by a combination of gas chromatography with flame ionization detector and gas chromatography with mass spectrometer detector analyses. All oils showed weak activity against the planktonic form of a group of Staphylococcus aureus strains and against a Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442 reference strain. The ability to inhibit biofilm formation was investigated at sub-MIC levels of 200, 100, and 50 m g/ml by staining sessile cells with safranin. Sample E showed the highest average effectiveness against all tested strains at 50 m g/ml and had inhibition percentages ranging from 30 to 52%. In the screening that used preformed biofilm from the reference strain P. aeruginosa, essential oils A through E were inactive at 200 m g/ml; F was active with a percentage of inhibition equal to 53.2%. Oregano essential oil can inhibit the formation of biofilms of various food pathogens and food spoilage organisms.Essential oils from six different populations of Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum were compared for their antibiofilm properties. The six essential oils (A to F) were characterized by a combination of gas chromatography with flame ionization detector and gas chromatography with mass spectrometer detector analyses. All oils showed weak activity against the planktonic form of a group of Staphylococcus aureus strains and against a Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15442 reference strain. The ability to inhibit biofilm formation was investigated at sub-MIC levels of 200, 100, and 50 m g/ml by staining sessile cells with safranin. Sample E showed the highest average effectiveness against all tested strains at 50 m g/ml and had inhibition percentages ranging from 30 to 52%. In the screening that used preformed biofilm from the reference strain P. aeruginosa, essential oils A through E were inactive at 200 m g/ml; F was active with a percentage of inhibition equal to 53.2%. Oregano essential oil can inhibit the formation of biofilms of various food pathogens and food spoilage organisms