Precaution and protection policies of urban ecosystem in the Iblea north eastern coast of Sicily

According to the hypothetical urban scenarios in the future, the urban ecosystem will be the piace where the most part of people live, with a deep negative impact on the world ecosystem. So it is necessary for all the people to get better ways of life in the towns and less and less unbalanced urban space, that to say a clean, efficiency and productive place that satisfies the needs of its inhabitants. A fundamental aim to the restoration of conditions of equity in the city seems to come from the models of development of sustainable city, related to the improvement of the environment and, above all, to a plan of sustainable society. Leaving from the indications of the European urban policies and those coming from issues about European, Mediterranean and Sicilian experiences, the team of present research may suggest he better political and technological choices adapted to the governance of urban ecosystem (with particular care for the waste, he transports, the management of the water and energetic resources) of the greater Sicilian cities an above all, of those if the Eastern Sicily. They will not come finally neglected the problematic related to the monitoring activities, both in function of the control of the environmental state and that of the continue verify of environmental impact of the pursued choices. Particular attention will be turned to the preventing of the seismic risk.

Trade as a cultural identity aspect in a city. A case study on Catania

In the present-day post-industrial society and in a globalised economy there is a strong tendency towards standardization and homologation. If we consider one of the most traditional urban functions - the commercial one - analysing what is happening in the centre of the cities of all the developed countries of the world, we notice a process of standardization regarding the offer, both in the sense of the single articles sold and in the sense of the commercial area in all its complexity (uniformity of the showcases for the exposure, diminution of the historical shops with sale of distinctive articles, diffusion of the branches of national and international chains and the phenomenon of franchising). Therefore, the central areas of our cities tend to be more and more alike. Obviously this is fruit of a more complex process, that is concretized in the tendency towards the diversification of the distributive network through the rapid diffusion of hypermarkets and commercial centres in the outskirts of cities and in the changed behaviour of the consumers, more and more directed to American styles of consumption. What kind of role will the more traditional commercial structures that characterize the Italian historical centres have in the future? Despite the fact that these last ones are, at the moment, under considerable pressure that pushes towards a more radical change, there is the possibility however that the particular "commercial landscape" that characterizes them could itself become a new model of development capable of promoting the urban culture, close to the functionalistic model, currently in expansion, totally directed towards the peripheral spaces. Catania is a city where we find, to a great extent, the evolutionary characteristics of the southern urban system, but in which we find even more the changes and the tendencies present in the cities of the more developed regions when processes of decentralization of economic activities, residential activities and of the social structures are outlined. The commercial patrimony of Catania, besides the cultural one, represents one of the pivots on which the identity of the city is based. It represents a resource for the development of the town and a stimulation of tourism. This research investigates the solidity and the potentialities of traditional commerce in the central areas of the city of Catania in relation to the dynamics of development of the external commercial centres.

Reading and interpreting the gateways in contemporary cities: an educational perspective

This work aims at highlighting the teaching potentialities of urban geography, in particular the didactic value of gateways in contemporary cities. Therefore, after a reflection on the still fundamental pedagogical value of urban geography and its teaching tools, the paper provides a model of reading and interpreting the city through the study of connections between tourist flows and consumption models in specific urban places, that is to say, the traditional city gateways such as railway stations, ports and airports

A NEW DIALETICS CENTRE/PERIPHERY

This paper deals with the analysis of current changes which have been recently shaping unprecedented urban structures in some suburban areas, due to the emerging of new consumptions spaces. In particular, the work aims at highlighting the effect of urban sprawl on the main Sicilian metropolitan areas, also moulded by the diffusion of the suburban retailing formats, in order to evaluate to what extent these dynamics have been contributing to the configuration of new urban landscapes and unprecedented socio-economic structures, not to mention the  new consumption spacessupport in the process of containing social and economic marginalisation

The Initiative for Dark Matter in Europe and Beyond (iDMEu): An Expression of Interest as a Joint Activity between ECFA, NuPECC, and APPEC

Understanding dark matter (DM; Figure 1), how it was produced in the early universe, what is its nature, and where it is located in the cosmos is one of the fundamental physics problems of our cent..

Il Film-Induced Tourism nell\u2019esperienza nord americana

Com\u2019\ue8 noto, il turismo si presenta come uno tra i fenomeni territoriali pi\uf9 dinamici e con un\u2019elevata propensione al cambiamento. Negli ultimi decenni, nel mercato si sono imposte nuove forme di turismo con l\u2019obiettivo di soddisfare nuovi bisogni dei consumatori sempre pi\uf9 esigenti e pronti a nuove esperienze di viaggio. Tra queste nuove tipologie di turismo, il fi lm induced tourism svolge un ruolo determinate per il posizionamento di numerose destinazioni in tutto il mondo. Pertanto, la pellicola diviene il punto di partenza nella costruzione dell\u2019itinerario di viaggio del turista-consumatore. Ma, concretamente, quali sono le ricadute positive che il fenomeno del fi lm induced tourism propone? \uc8 questa la domanda a cui si \ue8 cercato di dare una risposta, studiando un caso piuttosto singolare nel panorama delle location Nord americane, e cio\ue8 gli effetti attrattivi che i luoghi del famoso Magic Bus, nel fi lm Into the Wild. Dopo il successo del fi lm, l\u2019Alaska, nonostante la scarsa accessibilit\ue0 strutturale, ha goduto di una crescita esponenziale degli arrivi: ogni anno un milione e mezzo di visitatori, provenienti da tutto il mondo, si reca in questi luoghi per rivivere le emozioni provate durante la visione

The physical spaces of virtual retail: e-commerce, logistics and s\uf3cio-territorial dynamics in Italy

The increasing diffusion of e-commerce have posed different questions connected to the socio-spatial specificities of consumption patterns and practices, ranging from the new \u201cvirtual\u201d experiences of purchase to the insertion of periurban or rural places in a wider system of global retail relations. Ranging from e-commerce to the digitalisation of retail functions, the \u201cconnected\u201d retail has deeply modified both the actions of purchase and the consumption patterns. From the geographical standpoint, new practices concur in re-writing the relationship between retail and territories, since e-commerce can lessen territorial disparities in terms of commercial offer, reconfigurate the spatial dimension of purchase as well as transforming mobility and transport systems. Thus, this paper aims at exploring the physical implications of e-commerce, by taking into account the consequences in terms of territorial processes, logistics and space organization deriving from the ever-increasing pervasiveness of virtual retail. Far from being a phenomenon confined only to the virtual sphere, e-commerce relies on a complex system of relations which are deeply territorialized as well as rooted in the local contexts: storehouses and transport systems based on courier companies represent the \u201cphysical\u201d dimension of e-commerce, which has been completely upsetting patterns and practices of retail and consumption in the last decade. Inserted in the wider theoretical framework of the Geography studying the reciprocal interactions between virtual and real spaces, the work is finalised to explore the implications of the above-mentioned interactions in the retail field. The aim is not only to deepen the epistemological questions linked to the new \u201cvirtual\u201d Retail Geography, but also to scrutinize processes and dynamics through which e-commerce has been recently transforming the physical spaces where its infrastructures (storehouses and even physical \u201cexperiential\u201d shops) are located, inserted in a growing complex system of land transport. From the empirical point of view, the paper will deepen the relations between e-commerce and physical spaces in Italy, by outlining the evolution of e-commerce in the country in comparison with the territorial dynamics occurring in the \u201creal-world\u201d spaces

Le porte della citt\ue0. Porti, stazioni ed aeroporti, vecchi e nuovi luoghi di accesso urbano

Le citt\ue0 contemporanee si caratterizzano per la loro capacit\ue0 di collegarsi a diverse tipologie di reti economiche, fisiche e istituzionali. Ecco perch\ue9 il loro futuro sar\ue0 legato alla capacit\ue0 di essere sempre pi\uf9 gateway cities, citt\ue0 porto/porta, in grado di connettersi al network globale. Le citt\ue0 creative e creatrici del terzo millennio non competeranno pi\uf9 per dimensione demografica o spaziale ma per il ruolo, i servizi ad alto valore aggiunto che saranno in grado di esprimere per essere \u201cnodo\u201d nella rete. Ecco perch\ue9 le economie urbane contemporanee stanno contribuendo a configurare nuovi paesaggi urbani in cui, sempre pi\uf9 spesso, alle infrastrutture di connessione nazionale ed internazionale - stazioni ferroviarie e di servizio, porti, aeroporti, nodi intermodali, autostrade, linee metropolitane e tranviarie, strade urbane ed extraurbane \u2013 \ue8 affidato il difficile compito, non solo di garantire l'efficienza dei collegamenti ma anche di riorganizzare il sistema delle gerarchie funzionali in modo da favorire lo sviluppo delle potenzialit\ue0 dei luoghi in cui si inseriscono e con i quali, dunque, sono chiamate a costruire un serrato confronto. Si tratta di un processo avviato in molte citt\ue0 europee che vede realizzarsi, nel medio e lungo periodo, parallelamente alla trasformazione di queste \u201cporte\u201d urbane, operazioni di riconversione, recupero e riqualificazione di aree che coinvolgono anche i tessuti urbani circostanti. Gli interventi di recupero, hanno l\u2019obiettivo, oltre che di potenziare le funzioni ferroviarie, portuali, aeroportuali di recuperare le aree libere o dismesse attraverso l\u2019insediamento di nuove funzioni residenziali, commerciali, culturali e del tempo libero