Measuring the expected increase in cycling in the city of Milan and evaluating the positive effects on the population’s health status: a Community-Based Urban Planning experience

BACKGROUND: It's scientifically known that inactivity is one of the major risk factors for Non-Communicable Diseases. One of the elements affecting the choice of transport mode, regarding circulation in the city, is the cities' urban morphology, i.e. the infrastructural facilities for the slow mobility service. Cyclability, in fact, can help to increase daily physical activity level, therefore becoming a protective factor for individual health. METHODS: After a literature review about the state of the art regarding the correlation between built environment, active transport and quantification of the physical activity level, we have developed a specific questionnaire to collect information about current and forecast use of bicycle, in case of improvement and implementation of the cycling network. The questionnaire also investigated social and health aspects concerning the anamnesis of the interviewees (age, gender, health status, sport activity performed, etc) and users' opinions about existing infrastructure and planned interventions, designed to promote cycling mobility. Aim of the research was to quantify the increase of physical activity people would have realized in front of an improvement of the specific infrastructures, and the expected positive effects in terms of health. RESULTS: The collected data (343 interviewed in a district of Milan, named "Zona 7") demonstrate that through the implementation of the cycle network, there would be more cyclists to practice the 150 minutes weekly of physical activity recommended by WHO: time spent in cycling, indeed, would increases by 34.4% compared to the current level of cyclability, as detected by our survey. CONCLUSIONS: The investigation confirmed that urban interventions, especially those in small-scale, could play a key role in the promotion of healthy lifestyles, inducing therefore important positive effects on the population health. It was also carried out an application of the WHO "Health Economic Assessment Tool" to evaluate the benefits in terms of Non-Communicable Diseases' reduction, specifically a provisional quantification of deaths saved

How to assess the compensations for home relocation: the case of the Malpensa airport

The development of the Malpensa airport into a Hub for the Central and South Europe has produced on one side relevant economic impacts, on the other one considerable environmental problems, due to the noise and atmospheric pollution, especially for the inhabitants who live within a distance of 400 meters from the airport. In the face of this difficult situation, the Lombardy Region has endorsed an agreement for relocating and compensating households affected by the environmental negative externalities. In this context the paper introduces the appraisal procedure used for estimating compensations and discusses the results, mostly in terms of deviation from the expected values and effectiveness of the model

Effects of Nordic Walking Training on Anthropometric, Body Composition and Functional Parameters in the Middle-Aged Population

Nordic walking (NW) is an easy physical exercise that is usually proposed for clinical populations and for the elderly. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of a period of NW training in a non-clinical middle-aged population on anthropometric, body composition and functional parameters. A pre-test/post-test study design was conducted on 77 participants: 56 women (72.7%, age 55.53 ± 9.73 years) and 21 men (27.3%, age 60.51 ± 8.15 years). The measurements were carried out with physical tests at the baseline and at the follow up. Participants did two weekly NW training sessions of about 60 min each. A questionnaire was administered to evaluate their feelings after the training period. Paired Students’ test was carried out to evaluate the pre–post differences, and the analysis of variance was performed to evaluate the questionnaire. Participants had significantly less stress and anxiety after the NW training. Body fat parameters showed a significant decrease, especially for women. Phase angle and strength of lower body presented a significant increase in both sexes after the training period. In conclusion, NW shows many potential benefits also for the nonclinical population and could be an important exercise to remain active and to maintain a good health condition

Damage assessment for architectural heritage: The Cavallerizza Reale complex in Turin

Damage assessment for architectural heritage stands as a relevant issue from an appraisal perspective due to heritage properties’ peculiar technological and building techniques and their complex social values. The specificity of Italian cultural heritage, widespread on the national territory, even in high environmental risk (landslides, earthquakes, and floods) areas, calls for dealing with the damage assessment theme by considering tangible and intangible features. Indeed, architectural heritage value is not limited only to its market or use value but must be expressed as a Total Economic Value, in its tangible and intangible components, that can be destroyed or affected by damages. In this context, the paper provides a relevant case study concerning the assessment of fire, lack of maintenance, and occupation damages for the ‘Pagliere’ buildings, located within the building complex ‘Cavallerizza Reale’ in Turin, which is included in the Unesco World Heritage list. Thanks to the specificities and the historical-architectural significance of the properties under analysis, this case study provided an interesting reflection on the methodological approach for the total damage assessment, given by the sum of its three different components: Fire damage, lack of maintenance damage, and abandonment damage. Based on the discussion of the results, the paper proposes some possible insights for future research focusing on assessing architectural heritage damages

Valutazione multicriterio e stime di massa: un’applicazione ad un patrimonio immobiliare pubblico

The paper presents an application of multi-criteria evaluation developed to select the most significant property characteristics of a real estate portfolio. The selected characteristics are utilized within a multi-parameter model to estimate the most probable market value of a large public property portfolio owned by the Bank of Italy. The multi-criteria evaluation is based on the involvement of some key actors of the decision process. The goal is overcoming the difficulties presented by econometric models due to the scarcity of a large sample real estate data. The application has shown that the selection and weighting of real estate characteristics allows the development of a reliable mass appraisal without the need for large amounts of data necessary for the application of regression models

Dominance-based rough set analysis for understanding the drivers of urban development agreements

The rise of neoliberalism in the context of urban development has en- couraged the cooperation between public and private parties. This co- operation is structured by contracts, generally called Urban Develop- ment Agreements (DAs). Being part of the urban regeneration strate- gies, these projects aim at achieving a durable improvement of an area according to sustainability principles. Thus, within the negotiation be- tween private and public, multiple and conflicting instances have to be faced case by case. Despite the uniqueness of each DA, it is possi- ble to define a set of pertinent characteristics that play a crucial role in determining the fairness and appropriateness of the public-private part- nership. Given this context, the work proposes the Dominance Rough Set Approach (DRSA) for exploring the relationship between condi- tion attributes or criteria and decision with the aim of supporting ne- gotiations on the basis of specific features of the DA under evaluation. Specifically, DRSA has been applied on a sample of DAs recently con- cluded in the Lombardy Region, and tested on the other sample of DAs under the negotiation phase. The analysis has accounted for the char- acteristics referring to the following five contexts: urban, institutional, negotiation, development, and economic. The inferred decision rules provide useful knowledge for supporting complex decision processes such as DAs

Rethinking feasibility analysis for urban development: a multidimensional decision support tool

Large-scale urban development projects featured over the past thirty years have shown some critical issues related to the implementation phase. Con-sequently, the current practice seems oriented toward minimal and wide-spread interventions meant as urban catalyst. This planning practice might solve the problem of limited reliability of large developments’ feasibility studies, but it rises an evaluation demand related to the selection of coali-tion of projects within a multidimensional and multi-stakeholders deci-sion-making context. This study aims to propose a framework for the generation of coalitions of elementary actions in the context of urban regeneration processes and for their evaluation using a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis approach. The proposed evaluation framework supports decision makers in exploring dif-ferent combinations of actions in the context of urban interventions taking into account synergies, i.e. positive or negative effects on the overall per-formance of an alternative linked to the joint realization of specific pairs of actions. The proposed evaluation framework has been tested on a pilot case study dealing with urban regeneration processes in the city of Milan (Italy)

The financial sustainability of cultural heritage reuse projects: An integrated approach for the historical rural landscape

In the last decades, the growing concern about land consumption, together with the awareness about cultural heritage’s key role for sustainable development, has led to greater attention to cultural property reuse as a conscious process of new values production. However, decisions about heritage bring a high degree of complexity, related to the need to preserve properties’ values and fulfill protection legislation, thus bringing high cost, which discourages public and private investments for reuse interventions. In this context, it becomes urgent to support reuse decisions through proper evaluation methodologies that, dealing with the complexity of interests at stake, allow individuals to assess the financial sustainability of conscious cultural heritage reuse projects. For these reasons, the paper proposes a methodological framework that, grounded on the recognition of cultural properties’ values and their possible integration in the local economic system, assesses reuse projects’ financial sustainability. This methodology’s application is discussed through a case study, represented by a project for a historical rural landscape in Pantelleria island. The application to the case study allows us to discuss the role of the proposed evaluation framework in supporting and promoting cultural heritage reuse and its possible room for improvement