Sustainability and Urban Planning Processes. An Integrated Tool for Sustainable Urban Management.

In the last decades in Italy the debate on the urban planning crisis (Balducci, 1991; Urbani, 2000) had showed a shift from practices informed by politics and negotiation to new positions where planning methods are characterized by a communicative adaptive evaluation of a set of options about land uses and transformations. Within this framework the need emerged of new approaches to planning able to fulfil community expectations. In the light of recent developments in the economic sector and his branches, and primarily in business management, various tools for urban policy making have been recently adopted and implemented in many Italian local authorities: - Implementation of certificated systems for environmental management (Varese Ligure was first Italian municipality to obtain an ISO 14001 certification in 1999); - Use of control and evaluation systems like environmental and strategic plan design aiming at the integration of these practices in a single comprehensive tool, articulated within three phases (organizational, social accounting (18 municipalities have already test these tools and a bill is discussed for their insert in public authorities management); - Employment of participatory practices in the government of environmental problems (Local Agenda 21 processes is hitting an advanced level of implementation both in the municipal and in the provincial level especially in regions like the Emily and Romagna, the Marches, Tuscany, Liguria); - Use of means of communication addressed both to internal members of public authorities and to stakeholders and local community (for example environmental and social statements drawing up by local authorities or sustainability reports like that compiled within 21st Olympic Games organization). However, the analysis of many case-studies showed often the use of these tools it is not directly coordinated with urban planning instruments. In this paper the authors propose a tentative framework for a sustainable decisional and operative) cyclicly. The objective is, as far as these practices are promoted by main international and European agendas and declarations, to connect by this tool local government choices to most important policies on sustainable development.

Grouping complex systems: a weighted network comparative analysis

In this study, the authors compare two inter-municipal commuting networks (MCN) pertaining to the Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily, by approaching their characterization through a weighted network analysis. They develop on the results obtained for the MCN of Sardinia (De Montis et al. 2007) and attempt to use network analysis as a mean of detection of similarities or dissimilarities between the systems at hand

Modeling commuting systems through a complex network analysis: a study of the Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily

This study analyzes the inter-municipal commuting systems of the Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily, employing weighted network analysis technique. Based on the results obtained for the Sardinian commuting network, the network analysis is used to identify similarities and dissimilarities between the two systems

Accessibility in commuting systems network based performance indicators

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on accessibility by adopting complex network analysis as a base for constructing accessibility indicators. In this case, a contribution is offered in construction of two groups of indicators: travel cost and gravity based indexes. A case study is proposed on the level of accessibility of two towns of commuters in the island of Sardinia, Italy

Evaluating geographic information provision within public administration websites

Abstract. The authors are concerned with the provision of public sector geographic information (GI) and the use of GI technologies (GITs) within public administration websites, with particular reference to planning. Results of a survey carried out by the authors on an Italian case study are evaluated with respect to the GI content and technology adopted. A rapid evaluation method is proposed to analyse and compare GI/GIT-diffusion frameworks within public administration at the national level

Evaluating geographic information provision within public administration websites

The authors are concerned with the provision of public sector geographic information (GI) and the use of GI technologies (GITs) within public administration websites, with particular reference to planning. Results of a survey carried out by the authors on an Italian case study are evaluated with respect to the GI content and technology adopted. A rapid evaluation method is proposed to analyse and compare GI/GIT-diffusion frameworks within public administration at the national level.