Ignazio Marcello Vinci

Reshaping the Urban Environment Through Mobility Projects and Practices: Lessons from the Case of Palermo

Transport and mobility are crucial factors in the process of adaptation of contemporary urban areas to the challenge of sustainable development. In this perspective, however, cities need to perform a more effective integration between a wide range of different policies and planning practices. Together with a more effective integration between transport policy and land-use planning, for instance, cities could take growing advantage by organisational factors, as well as the spreading of new technologies and the related processes of social innovation. Through the description of several project and planning initiatives taking place in Palermo, the fifth Italian city, this paper attempts to explore the potential sinergies between the “hard factors” of mobility—in this case given by the huge programme of infrastructure redevelopment under realisation in the city—with some other dimensions, such as urban regeneration processes, governance and community-led processes of innovation.

Rimodellare l’interfaccia terra-mare attraverso la mobilità sostenibile: un progetto per una greenway nella Sicilia occidentale

This work illustrates the planning experience, still underway, carried out by five municipalities of western Sicily (Italy) in the preparation of a sustainable urban development strategy in the framework of the EU’s urban agenda 2014-2020. The strategy, whose general objectives are strengthening territorial cohesion and increasing accessibility to local resources, focuses on sustainable mobility corridors in coastal areas as the instruments through which such objectives can be better achieved and reciprocally integrated. After an exploration of the literature, the article provides an analysis of the potential demand for sustainable mobility in the given urban system, an explanation of the criteria considered for the design of the slow mobility infrastructure, as well as of the overall benefits the intervention can provide in terms of local development. Particularly, we intend to demonstrate that a revised green way concept, being able to increase accessibility to a broad range of resources and functions (natural sites, landscapes, cultural heritage, urban functions), can play a multidimensional role in increasing connectivity between sea and land, urban and rural areas.

La politica urbana dell’UE da una prospettiva meridionale: il caso di Palermo

For many European cities the EU’s structural funds have led to a radical innovation in approaching urban policy at different scales. For many others, particularly within the less developed regions, they also have resulted in a unique financial opportunity to carry out large infrastructural interventions as well as complex regeneration projects. In this context, this paper provides a critical analysis of the evolution of urban policy in the city of Palermo, the fifth Italian city by demographic size and capital of one of the largest less developed region of the European Union. Through the analysis of various initiatives carried out over the last two decades – from the Urban Initiative in the nineties to the projects under implementation within the Urban Agenda 2020 – the work aims to understand their local effects from different perspectives and, at the same time, the way in which the different priorities of the European urban agenda have been embedded within the local political discourse.

Designing Mobility in a City in Transition. Challenges from the Case of Palermo

Transport policy is one of the most crucial sectors in the process of adaptation of contemporary cities to the challenge of sustainable development. For its close relation with social habits and people behaviors, in fact, innovation in transports play a strategic role both in the decreasing of the environmental impact of mobility and in the improvement of the quality of the built environment. To do so, however, cities need to reach a more effective integration between transport policy and land-use planning, as well as taking full advantage by the spreading of new technologies. In this context, this paper discusses the challenges provided by the reshaping of the transport system in the metropolitan area of Palermo, the second larger city in Southern Italy. It attempts to explore, particularly, the potential connections between the future “hard factors” of the transport policy – as a result of the programme of infrastructural improvement under realization in the urban area –, with other “soft factors”, such as the practices of social innovation in the field of mobility with the help of ICTs and other opportunities for urban regeneration linked to the reshaping of the transport system.

La pianificazione strategica nelle città del Mezzogiorno

Un programma di incentivi lanciato nel 2004 dal governo nazionale ha consentito a diverse decine di municipalita del Mezzogiorno di avviare la costruzione di piani strategici per promuovere nuovi scenari di sviluppo sostenibile per le proprie aree urbane e metropolitane. Rispetto a questo quadro di esperienze ancora in corso di implementazione, questo articolo si propone due obiettivi: i) descrivere i modelli di governance adottati nelle diverse regioni del Mezzogiorno e, attraverso questi, comprendere il contributo che i piani strategici possono fornire alle politiche territoriali regionali; ii) identificare alcune condizioni di efficacia per l’implementazione dei piani strategici in contesti problematici quali le citta meridionali.