Mariangela Lavanga

Toward a Sustainable Relationship between City and University A Stakeholdership Approach

While the impact of knowledge assets on regional economies receives much attention in the economic literature, management and planning issues regarding the relationships between academic and local agents are underinvestigated. In this article, it is argued that universities could be a driving force for urban development, provided cities succeed in embedding knowledge in the local social and economic networks, which is seen to depend to a large extent on the balance in the process of exchange between the various stakeholders of higher education: students and academic communities, entrepreneurs, and local communities. A model of sustainable city-university relationship is proposed and matched with evidence from nine case studies of European cities hosting a large higher education sector; the role of policy and planning to sustain and enhance such links is also brought to the fore through the illustration of various best practices in the case studies.While the impact of knowledge assets on regional economies receives much attention in the economic literature, management and planning issues regarding the relationships between academic and local agents are underinvestigated. In this article, it is argued that universities could be a driving force for urban development, provided cities succeed in embedding knowledge in the local social and economic networks, which is seen to depend to a large extent on the balance in the process of exchange between the various stakeholders of higher education: students and academic communities, entrepreneurs, and local communities. A model of sustainable city-university relationship is proposed and matched with evidence from nine case studies of European cities hosting a large higher education sector; the role of policy and planning to sustain and enhance such links is also brought to the fore through the illustration of various best practices in the case studies.

Arte pubblica e pianificazione urbana nell'esperienza olandese

The aim of this paper is to investigate the Dutch approach to publicart, through the analysis of the relationships between public art and urban transformation processes. The activities of the SKOR (Foundation Art and Public Space) and the case of BEYOND - Leidsche Rijn will be examined. This paper starts with some considerations concerning the concepts of public space and public realm, together with a general introduction about public art projects in Italy and The Netherlands. These considerations would allow for a better understanding of the peculiarities of both the approaches. In Italy public art projects are closer to the community art projects; in The Netherlands a strong integration between public art and urban planning/regeneration, among arts, public space and public realm is prevailing.