Giuseppe B. Las Casas

Sustainable Planning: A Methodological Toolkit

This paper proposes a methodological appraisal developed in order to face the recurring conflict between environment and economic development assessed in a specific implementation context: the Val d’Agri in Basilicata (Italy), where protection and exploitation requests include the safeguard of particular traditions and culture of communities located in inland areas of the Apennines, as well as environmental resources (natural, agricultural, historical and artistic resources). In this view, we selected strategies in order to promote innovation required by the self-centred part of the development and we referred to a right of rationality of choices, based on: equity, efficiency and conservation of resources; accountability instruments and uncertainty sharing means to which connect the integrated cycle of assessment/governance. The Logical Framework Matrix (LFM) was proposed for this purpose and, through the derived call, applicants will have to work on the basis of a set of procedures oriented to the construction of ended and integrated supply chains.

Overcoming Interoperability Weaknesses in e-Government Processes: Organizing and Sharing Knowledge in Regional Development Programs Using Ontologies

European Regional Policy produced several generations of programmes at both National and Regional levels. Such a complex framework tends to increase multi-level governance in the period 2007-2013, promoting a wider participation of stakeholders (including Public Administration, Local Communities, Enterprises, etc). This process has been usually accompanied by e-tools for the management of bottom-up processes, with several instances related to common problems of participation processes. Communication between “programmer” and categories of beneficiaries always presented weakness due to the ineffective system of management knowledge within the process. Relevant issues in the framework of regional development programmes are: Do stakeholders understand the meaning of general and sectoral policies? Are citizens aware of technical instruments implementing such policies? Are they conscious of ex-ante comprehensive context analysis and/or can they share possible future scenarios? A way to tackle these problems is the use of ontologies. In this work we present the structural elements of the ontology of regional development programmes analyzing major steps of the ontology design and nodal phases of the ontology building (i.e. consensus on relations and restrictions, switch from glossary to taxonomy). The result of such an application is an ontology of regional development containing more than one hundred classes.

That's ReDO: ontologies and regional development planning

European Cohesion Policy generates several programs at territorial levels. An evident trend is the increasing of multi-level governance in the period 2007-2013, promoting a wider participation to programming processes. It is possible to affirm that new instances are coming out. We refer to problems generally connected with participation processes. The relation between problems in knowledge management and ineffective impacts of local development plans is confirmed. Therefore, the central role of communication determines relevant issues regarding the ability to understand the meaning of general and sectoral policies by stake holders, the awareness of citizens to manage technical instruments implementing such policies. Are they conscious of ex-ante comprehensive context analysis and/or can they share possible future scenarios? A way to tackle these problems is the use of ontologies. In this work we present the structural elements and an application of ReDO ontology (Regional Development Ontology) analyzing major steps of ontology design and nodal phases of ontology building (i.e. consensus on relations and restrictions, and switch from glossary to taxonomy).

Regional Local Development Strategies Benefiting from Open Data and Open Tools and an Outlook on the Renewable Energy Sources Contribution

The New Cohesion Policy opens to an integrated place-based approach for the improvement of territorial and social cohesion. The issue of territorial impact assessment of regional development policies highlight that data availability, open access to datasets in “near real-time”, participation, knowledge sharing, and assumed importance within the planning process. In this paper we present an application of spatial analysis techniques for evaluation of territorial effects of EU funds starting from open data by ‘open-coesione’. The final scope is to have the opportunity to develop an assessment in the framework of a public debate. According to this issue we developed an empirical approach for context analysis using open-data assumed as a relevant source of information for the measurement of diffused concerns. The application regards an internal area of the Basilicata Region: the Agri Valley, a complex contest in which environmental and agricultural vocation conflicts with the recent development of oil extraction industries (the actual main territorial specialization). The research produced an integrated approach in order to highlight the energy development domain for Agri Valley. In a first stage the balance between fossil/traditional and renewable energies development should consider the traditional manufacts and practice in order to push on community identity and social commitment. This implies—for the planner—the requirement of managing social conflicts and promoting effective procurement in territorial management. The paper describes as a strategy of conflicts resolution an integrated project called an “Energy Museum”. The “Conclusions” at the end of this chapter discusses further applications and perspectives for improving regional development planning, considering the exploitation of open data sources and spatial analysis in one hand and on the Renewable Energy Sources on the other.

Spatial autocorrelation analysis for the evaluation of migration flows: the italian case

During the last decades immigration phenomenon reached a considerable importance, not only in research sector but also at public opinion level. Migration is a complex phenomenon demanding a system analysis which goes beyond demographic and economic considerations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the spatial structure of foreign presence in Italy in order to identify its geographical demarcation line among different interpretations. Traditional statistical analysis suggests different conventional indices allowing to quantify immigration phenomenon. Traditional indices, as Location Quotients and Segregation Index, have been compared to innovative indices including spatial statistics elements, as well as global and local indicators of spatial association. Such indicators have been created on the basis of available data for the case study, but also considering information which can be easily found in great part of national contexts.

Analyzing Neighbourhoods Suitable for Urban Renewal Programs with Autocorrelation Techniques

Since the Industrial Revolution the main model of urban development has been based on the concept of urban expansion, where new parts are added to existing towns in order to satisfy the housing demand. While in pre-industrial cities, main activities influence a portion of space within or immediately next to the border of urban settlements, the rapid growth of cities in the industrial era represents the transition from an almost sustainable city to a city that takes advantage of the carrying capacity of neighbouring regions (Stren et al., 1992).

A renewed rational approach from liquid society towards anti-fragile planning

Starting from the Blecic and Cecchini book “Verso una pianificazione antifragile” [1], this paper will identify main arguments that: (i) help to deal with the conflicts of a complex society that weakens the connections between pieces of society on all level; (ii) recognize in Z. Bauman thought the elements of concern that characterize the liquidity of our society and its negative connection with urban and regional planning; (iii) highlight in “anti-fragile planning” an innovation instance for the discipline promoting new approaches that starting from the reduction of territorial vulnerability (resistent), are able to promote the regeneration of utility functions (resilient) by involving local communities in a collective form of creativity strategic development form. In one word: anti-fragile.

Open Data for Territorial Specialization Assessment Territorial Specialization in Attracting Local Development Funds: an Assessment. Procedure Based on Open Data and Open Tools

The New Cohesion Policy opens to an integrated place-based approach for the improvement of territorial and social cohesion. The issue of territorial impact assessment of regional development policies highlight that data availability, open access to datasets in “near real-time”, participation, knowledge sharing, assumed importance within the development planning process. The contribution of ‘open data’ appears to be mature and in this paper we present an application of spatial analysis techniques for the evaluation of spatial effects of EU funds starting form open data by open-coesione. The application regards an internal areas of Basilicata Region: the Agri Valley. A complex contests in which an environmental and agricultural traditional vocation conflicts with a recent development of oil extraction industries. Conclusions regard further applications and perspectives for improving and supporting regional development planning considering the exploitation of open data sources and spatial analysis.

G.I.S. and Fuzzy Sets for the Land Suitability Analysis

This paper reports about uncertainty in defining boundaries, which assume an institutional significance when transposed in planning prescription. Every discipline involved in environmental planning uses different approaches to represent its own vision of reality. Geological sciences or hydraulics evaluate risks by consistent mathematical models which are relevantly different to non linear models emploied in the field of ecology, and at the same time information about significance and value of cultural heritage in a given environment does not easily correspond to a value attribution. These questions represent an interesting field of research, related with the different character of information deriving from different disciplinary approaches, and with the more appropriate way of combining the same information. Different ways of managing values correspond to different ways of giving information. The result is a set of discrete representations of the physical space which correspond to a set of different values referring to areas which are considered homogeneous according to each disciplinary point of view, but very difficult to combine to create landscape units according to the whole of disciplines. The present paper illustrates a reflection on a G.I.S. application in a land suitability study on a sub-regional area of Southern Italy. Emerging questions are related to the need to combine contributions of all environmental information which are represented at different scales, with different interpretative models, with different precision of identification of landscape unit, etc.

Public decision processes: the interaction space supporting planner's activity

The aim of research is to test the model of interaction space as a tool to support the plan conception, in the context of a public decision process. Interaction space model allows to analyze the interaction mechanisms that a public process generally activates, and help the planner, or more generally the analyst, to understand what kind of development the process could have, in order to address its progress. The model has been tested during the planning process in Laurenzana, small village in the South of Italy. The paper describes the implementation and carries out some criticisms related to the not well structured relation between the space interaction model and the public decision process: once the interaction space is completely developed, the public process is generally at the beginning of implementation phase.