From Planning to Management of Cult Ural Heritage Sites: Controversies and Conflicts Between Unesco Whl Management Plans and Local Spatial Planning in South-Eastern Sicily

The paper investigates the relationship between the preservation of cultural heritage and planning in UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) sites, with special reference to the relation between Management Plans and other (local and regional) planning instruments and policies able to influence the promotion of sustainable and responsible development. This will be explored through a case study related to South-Eastern Sicilian UNESCO sites (in particular Syracuse). The analysis of this case study will point out the challenge of integrating different management and planning regimes - which mainly refer to a performative model - in a (still) very conformative planning system. The paper will show how supranational protection tools and models often lose their efficacy in relation to local planning systems

Antigone, today: Dignity and human rights in contemporary spaces

The tragedy of Antigone revolves around the theme of conflict. Both the version written by Sophocles and the one by Jean Anouilh are mainly focused on conflicts. The conflict between Antigone and Creon is real and symbolic at the same time. It is the conflict between a woman’s body and the law, between women’s and men’s conditions, between two anthropologies. It is also a conflict between two opposite ethical perspectives, and two opposite political visions. It is the conflict between the rule of individuals and the rule of laws, between non-violence and violence, social responsibility and individual egoism, and self-identification and identity. The conflict between Antigone and Creon is the heterogeneous sum of many conflicts. If we try to fit all conflicts within a broader framework, we could say that Antigone’s choice of disobedience raises the high-level conflict between human dignity and the law. This conflict takes place within the positive law and cannot exist outside it. Human dignity cannot elude the law, since it is rooted within the legal system. It does not, however, originate from it, but its finalisation is actually in the law; where gaps and fallacies are revealed. Its strength lies in the lack of a definition. Human dignity helps the law to regenerate and not become locked in a formal stronghold

ANTIGONE, TODAY: DIGNITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN CONTEMPORARY SPACES

References to human dignity are now frequently heard in public forums and debates, particularly in defence against violations of the conditions of freedom, and justice, and in protests against humiliation. The content of dignity, as well as of felicity, cannot however be defined. The notion of dignity, despite general agreement on the value of the idea, is frequently criticized for its lack of conceptual clarity, and openness to misinterpretation. In light of these premises the article proposes a reflection on the theme of dignity and human rights in contemporary spaces starting from the solicitations offered by the tragedy of Antigone where the Antigone’s choice of disobedience raises the high-level conflict between human dignity and the law

Making home, building citizenship : migrations, rights and housing policies in Sicily (Italy)

How is the housing issue in Southern Europe changing under the pressure of the arrival of foreign “new citizens”? This chapter explores this question through two Sicilian case studies that share the need to provide some initial answers to the aforementioned issue. The complexity of the issue brings with it a further question, which highlights how the mutation underway is an open question that centrally concerns urban and territorial policies: How can territorial and urban planning address this issue, going beyond the emergency responses that have been implemented to date? The first case study illustrates the issue of the presence of migrant workers in rural areas, problematising the issue in terms of two aspects: the preponderance of foreign workers in areas of agricultural excellence and the emergency measures taken so far to address the problem of temporary accommodation for agricultural workers. The second case study focuses on the city as a historically privileged physical and relational space for social interaction with others (foreigners). The recognition of different forms of citizenship (inclusive or exclusive) of social groups is reflected not only in the use of urban space, places to live, work and trade, or in the provision of services, but also in planning techniques that design new expressions of citizenship by distributing resources (material or immaterial). In both cases, the study of migrations succeeds in highlighting the contradictions that the territory expresses. It denounces the inadequacy of territorial and urban policies and the general lack of will to manage and regulate the phenomenon of the modification of the social framework in both agricultural and urban contexts

EDITORIAL. DIGNITY AND PLANNING: FRAMING THE ISSUE

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted on the world’s population in unprecedented terms, both with regard to its economic and socio-spatial implications. Social distancing measures and restrictions on the use of public spaces are permanently changing our relationships with urban spaces. Space also represents a crucial dimension in the construction of policies for preventing, managing, and contrasting the spread of the virus. Urban studies have often faced the challenges raised by health emergencies, natural disasters, and traumatic events, seizing the opportunities and need for radical rethinking of spaces and the processes that govern them. in relation to these considerations, the article proposes a reflection about new urban structures capable of dealing with pandemic and post-pandemic contexts, and also to overcome some structural contradictions and injustices that characterize the current urban neoliberal regime: in particular, the need to protect the health of both individuals and communities, the increase in socio-spatial inequalities and the importance of guaranteeing forms of participation in social life

Editorial

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, and according to a debate promoted by Benjamin Davy, we decided to have a special issue of the Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning on the intersections of human dignity, planning, and urban spaces. The articles in this special issue were written before the pandemic emergency, but nevertheless make a significant contribution in reflecting on the mutual relationships between human dignity and control of spaces, in ordinary as well as extraordinary times

Sustainable Urban Revitalization within a Historical Urban Neighborhood-A useful Approach to Complete

The historically important urban neighborhoods are practically a significant entity, a rich reservoir of social and economical milieu and cultural inheritance. Though, it faces many problems due to the rapid growth of population and the steady increases in the new requirements with concern of decompose this historical urban neighborhood. Presently sustainable urban revitalization is a theory to integrate inclusive concept of sustainability into urban revitalization process. Therefore to fix up such theory into true practices, a useful approach of urban revitalization planning should be worked out at the start. To work out how urban design would affect inclusive sustainable theory i.e. economy, environment, social equity and cultural values of urban revitalization schemes within Boro Bazaar Area (Khulna city, Bangladesh), a study investigating this issue is initiated. The paper highlights different approaches and strategies taken by different interview, questionnaire and field survey towards the methodologies of assessing, refurbishing and adding new value to the study areas, in view of increasing not only the quality of economical and social significance but also the quality of public spaces and services, for a better excellence of life of the society and neighbourhood.It is also believed that the research findings of this paper can strengthen the understanding of local developers, urban designers and government officials on how to plan a sustainable urban revitalization scheme afterwards

Formal property rights in the face of the substantial right to housing

This paper explores the dichotomy between formal property rights and use value of rights in the field of the right to housing for homeless people, focusing on the entitlement of the squatting practices to claim the collective rights in the public domain. This collective claim can be considered an alternative to the ‘traditional’ conception of the public property as 'exclusive' domain of State. In the cities of Southern Europe, urban space has become an ‘object’ of contention by groups of inhabitants, who are organized at various levels, and an object of claiming – through illegal (although not illegitimate) forms of occupation of public or social private properties – the right to housing as primary expression of the broader ‘right to the city’. Starting from the evidences emerging from the informal practices of reappropriation of spaces (occupied spaces) in the case study of Palermo, the aim of the paper is to demostrate that the use value is applicable in the housing field through the lens of the right to the city. The self-help housing practises suggest a “third way” in the theoretic interpretation on the right to housing, overtaking the division between natural rights and legal rights

Planning Research Ethics

This chapter will discuss why planning researchers of all kinds – faculty, students, consultants – need to be ethically sensitive. The chapter is written against a background of what has been termed an ‘”ethical” turn’ in many disciplines, and an increasing regulation (and bureaucratisation) of planning (and other) research conducted within universities. Ladd (1980,) argues that there are no ethical principles which are specific to any occupation. In this chapter we argue that the circumstances of planning research, at least, raise distinctive ethical issues . The chapter begins by considering the ethical dimensions of research practice. These will differ according to the way research practice is understood. It then asks why regulation of researchers’ conduct is now such a preoccupation of universities and researchers. Finally, it examines the nature of codes of ethics and when they are likely to be most effective

Rights of Migrants in European Space: Notes for an Introduction

Thisintroductorychapterreflectsonthenatureofcontemporarymigratory movements, focusing on transversally relevant themes, such as the spatial dimension of reception, with particular reference to the “right to the city” and the right to housing; the sphere of human rights, with particular attention to the right to mobility, citizenship and social security; the sphere of multilingualism and linguistic rights, with particular regard to migrants’ narratives and education. Starting from these key themes, the volume’s editors provide a synthesis of the experiences gained at the national and international level by the authors of the individual chapters, comparing them with the current international scientific debate on migration. The interdisci- plinary approach and the different and innovative ways of deepening the thematic content of the migration phenomenon have allowed us to identify some key research questions. Their answers find their place in the articulated and complex system of contributions that develops within the book, through three main parts that correspond to the three aforementioned themes