Romano Fistola

Smart energy in the smart city : urban planning for a sustainable future

This paper proposes a re-thought of the concept of urban smartness, particularly referring to the energy component. Recognizing that the new technologies, which are the most popular aspect of smartness, can play a fundamental role in the new approach, it has been suggested that we consider them in an adoptive way rather than in an adjunctive way, as it is commonly intended in the general sense of a smart city. According to this vision, in the first part of the paper, a new concept of smartness is proposed (SmartNESS: Smart New Energy Saving System). This concept is also related to the possibility of identifying some leading urban functions that can play a strategic role in improving urban smartness. In this sense, in the second part, tourism is considered as a drive function able to make cities more efficient and attractive if it will be integrated inside the urban governance process. The third part of the paper highlights how the rationalization and reduction of energy consumption is one of the essential fields to rely on in order to improve the smartness of a city. This part provides an overview of the most significant initiatives that are being developed on energy efficiency, and investigates some cases particularly innovative addressing the issue with an integrated and non-sectorial approach. Through the analyzed experiences, some possible intervention strategies to integrate the issues of energy efficiency in urban planning are suggested in the conclusive part of the paper.

The Sustainable City And The Smart City: Measuring Urban Entropy First

It is quite difficult to define what the Smart City is: some studies try to understand urban smartness by considering a set of variables inside the urban system. Most likely, a different method can be found, starting from the assumption that the city could be considered as a complex system. In a way, the authors can say that the Smart City is a physical space in which technology is widespread, available and inclusive and supports a new growth of social capital, the renewal of the material urban dimension and allows the development of new functional systems throughout the “virtualization” of some urban activities. The process towards the knowledge of “urban smartness” is conditioned to a first step, which is a common phase in the two new dimensions of modern urban planning: sustainable planning and smart planning. Both of these two dimensions try to manage the evolution of the urban system and drive it towards a future state that should be compatible with the available resources as well as sustainable considering the future needs of human beings as well as the planet. In order to initiate the management of territorial transformation, there is one first obligatory step in common with all new urban planning: the reduction of urban entropy. Urban entropy represents the main obstacle to starting new sustainable processes of urban planning and corresponds to all the kinds of urban dyscrasia that can occur within the urban subsystems. In order to reduce urban entropy, we first need to develop a way to identify and to measure it inside the different city sub-systems. This paper proposes a useful method which can be used to measure it and to envisage urban actions aimed at reducing negativity of the city by using new technologies.

Gestione innovativa della mobilità urbana: car sharing e ICT

La mobilita veicolare rappresenta senza dubbio l’attivita che piu di ogni altra caratterizza i moderni assetti urbani. Tale funzione, che ha contribuito a liberare il cittadino dai vincoli della prossimita funzionale ed ha modellato la metropoli contemporanea, si pone oggi come principale fattore entropico urbano. La mobilita veicolare rappresenta infatti la seconda causa di emissioni di gas serra nell’atmosfera, contribuisce all’incremento del riscaldamento globale e dell’alterazione del micro-clima urbano, produce un sensibile abbattimento dei livelli di qualita della vita urbana, etc.. Molte citta stanno implementando azioni per arginare il traffico veicolare all’interno centro urbano attraverso iniziative di dissuasione, tassazione o uso responsabile del veicolo privato. Probabilmente quest’ultima via puo rappresentare la scelta piu idonea in quanto agisce non in maniera coercitiva sul cittadino ma lo induce ad adottare nuovi comportamenti di responsabilita e una nuova etica dello spostamento. Il car-sharing promuove l’uso condiviso del medesimo veicolo che viene utilizzato da piu utenti, secondo le diverse necessita, senza che questi ne detengano il possesso. L’articolo descrive le caratteristiche di tale sistema, segnala alcuni esempi virtuosi ma rileva anche come in realta urbane quale Napoli, ove la mobilita veicolare rappresenta un consistente e storico problema per il quotidiano funzionamento della citta ed ove molti anni fa si erano avviate innovative sperimentazioni di mobilita condivisa con autovetture a propulsione elettrica, oggi si continua a sopravvivere alla congestione da traffico veicolare e non esiste ancora alcuna possibilita concreta di utilizzare il car-sharing.

Driving functions for urban sustainability: the double-edged nature of urban tourism

Our concept of urban sustainability is changing along with our evolving modern society. It is related to a number of factors that have an impact on our current understanding of the concept of an urban system. Referring to a systemic approach to understanding the urban system, we can consider urban sustainability as the opposite of urban entropy, which represents both the “dark side of the urban system” and the negative component of each urban subsystem. Within these subsystems, we can identify some driving functions that play an important role in urban sustainability. Nevertheless, when these functions exceed the threshold of urban load, urban entropy increases exponentially. Starting with the very recent changes in urban entropy (as well as urban sustainability) and by assuming that the negative components of the urban system are connected to urban risks, two types of urban entropies can be defined: endogenous and exogenous. The first relates to internal conditions of urban subsystems which unplanned urban management can generate. The second one relates to external causes: natural and anthropic. Within this framework, tourism can be considered as one of the urban functions affecting the organizational process of an urban system. Tourism depends on internal factors and grows by generating exogenous flows. In many cases, tourism plays a fundamental role in an urban economy and it acts as a strategic factor for urban competitiveness. When tourism exceeds urban capacity, it causes urban malfunctions. In this sense, tourism is one of the most sensitive urban functions regarding the process of entropy. Using the systemic approach as a theoretical reference, this paper states that tourism can act as a driving function able to shift the urban system towards sustainable condition if it is integrated into the process of town planning.

Slow Mobility and Cultural Tourism. Walking on Historical Paths

Slow mobility could stand as an occasion to foster new sustainable forms of territorial fruition. In this sense, the design of methods and technical tools, able to support the decision-makers, amounts to fundamental exigence of a form of town planning oriented both towards safeguarding and promoting territorial resources. The pursuit of this aim requires an accurate political and administrative strategy based on integration among actors involved in territorial development, as well as being oriented towards attaining improved tourist attractiveness. Tourism, in fact, can be a facilitator of territorial development if it is embedded in the general process of territorial governance. Cultural and historical paths represent physical infrastructures for supporting this sustainable and slow form of tourism involving walking across territories. Using these premises as a starting point, this paper aims to provide a methodology for designing or recovering historical paths suitable for slow mobility. The paper, thus, is articulated in three parts. The first part focuses on the characteristics of slow mobility. The second part highlights the potentialities connected with the revitalization of cultural paths, considered physical infrastructures able to promote sustainable tourism. The third part proposes a methodology for the recovery of a historical path linked to the Via Francigena.

The smart city and mobility: The functional polarization of urban flow

The paper deals with the definition of urban mobility, assuming that inside the city, the flow of mobility is deeply connected with the distribution, quality and use of the urban activities that “polarize” different users (residents, commuters, tourists and city users). In this vision, ICT assume a strategic role, but the need to reconsider their role emerges in respect to the concept of a smart city. The consideration that “urban smartness” does not depend exclusively on the ICT component or on the quantitative presence of technologies in the city, in fact, represents a shared opinion within the current scientific debate on the subject of the smart city. The paper assumes that, for the present urban contexts, the smart vision has to be related to an integrated approach, which considers the city as a complex system. Inside the urban system, the networks for both material and immaterial mobility interact with the urban activities that play a supporting role and have characteristics that affect the levels of urban smartness. Changes in urban systems greatly depend on the sorts of innovation technology that have intensely modified the social component to a far greater extent than others. Big Data, for instance, can help with knowledge of urban processes, provided they have to be well-interpreted and managed, and this will be of interest within the interactions among urban systems and the functioning of the system as a whole. Town planning has to take on responsibility in regard to approaching cities according to a different vision and updating its tools in order to steer the urban system steadfastly into a smartness state. In a systemic vision, this transition must be framed within the context of a process of governmental transformation that is carefully oriented towards the individuation of interactions among the different subsystems composing the city. According to this vision, the study of urban mobility can be related to the attractiveness generated by the different urban functions. The formalization of the degree of polarization, activated by urban functions, represents the main objective of this study. Among the urban functions, the study considers tourism as one of the most significant in the formalization of urban mobility flow inside the smart city.

La città dal filo: il trasporto a fune per la mobilità urbana

The urban transfer oriented climbing slopes, jumps and singularities of altitude topography found within cities, particularly those hills, is of considerable interest in the analysis of the relationship between mobility and urban land management in covering a considerable range of physical/functional factors can produce impacts and externalities which, if well-managed, can trigger processes reliever, sustainable development and promoting tourism inside the city. The article starts from the consideration of urban transport by ropeways as a viable, effective alternative to the collective transfer among different areas of the city, particularly in those cities which are characterized by unique morphological or hydrographic territory of which lend themselves to be ‘dated’ by mobility systems at high altitude. These features, in many international urban context, also contribute to enhance the amenity and the urban appeal. The paper seeks to emphasize how the ropeways can becomes efficient urban transport system between locations in the city, often placed at different heights and for which there is a less accessibility by ground, and at the same time, a fascinating way of tourist mobility that allow people to observe the city from above (moving on it), in a sort of dynamic view. This interesting functional convergence has been often highlighted in the studies conducted on this mode of transportation which in the past was considered one of the real possibilities for urban moving. Many cities are characterized by this type of mobility and within which existing systems of lifts, oblique connection between parts of the city secured by urban systems, lifts, cable cars, escalators, moving walkways, etc. . A focus it is also provided in relation to the ropeways, currently operating in many cities around the world, highlighting the effectiveness of mobility solutions at high altitude, although not necessarily intended for the slope, taken in metropolitan contexts outside of Europe since the ‘ 70 year. Furthermore a specific attention it is payed to the plants currently disused in Turin and in Naples with a special regard to the possible recovery prospects in a new urban mobility system. For the city of Naples it is presented also a new project for a rope way between the two famous museums: the Archeological, which is located inside the inner city, and the Capodimonte one which is at top if the hill of Capodimonte inside the well known area of the royal palace. Finally some new projects are presented regarding the cities of Rome and Milan. For the two biggest Italian cities, there are two ropeways designed that will, in the case of Milan, to link urban areas along a path that includes interchanges and stations in major urban hubs, starting from the airport; in the case of Rome the “link” will cross the river Tevere in order to connect two large districts of the city: the EUR and Magliana, historically splitted by the barrier river.

Smart Parking Pricing: procedure per una sosta perequativa

The relationship between city and car is in crisis and the difficult relationship is increasingly emphasized by the “breathing” difficulty affecting modern urban concentrations everyday. According to the APAT IV Report on the quality of urban environment in 13 urban areas (out of the 18 tracked) the thresholds of PM10 and NO2 exceed the limit allowed by law . As everybody knows, road vehicular transport is the main emission source of the two dangerous pollutants. Considering the levels of integrated pollution (air, noise, OEM) achieved by the major Italian cities, it is clear that it is necessary to think over the relationship between cities and cars in order to split the alliance. Most of the urban sprawl is due to the redesign of the urban pattern that, form the industrial revolution onwards, has introduced the motor vehicle, exceptional interpreter of the the’30s futurist culture. The implemented contrasting or discouraging policies have been established in many cities worldwide. The increasing use of road pricing, particularly in Anglo-Saxon forms of Congestion Charge, shows a widespread tendency to hinder the car traffic in the city center and to reject flows in the ring areas. The belief that in the city, or at least in its central parts, private vehicles circulation should be limited or even excluded is now widespread and shared also by the administrators. However, the other side of the coin should be considered as regards the demand for mobility not met by the Public Local Transportation (TPL) of many Italian cities. To foreshadow some possible solutions, it is therefore necessary to think from a new point of view, which considers factors such as: the effective polarization of mobility flows from the urban functions, the TPL availability representing the real alternative to private car mobility, the integration and the interchange opportunities in TPL network, the covering percentage of the municipal territory, service levels and efficiency. Where such requirements persist, apart form Road Pricing policies, new policies to control car-parking should be implemented, which would mainly consider the urban site of movement origin (i.e. the residence of the car owner), the potential accessibility and use of TPL in that area and the consequent pricing regulations of the destination parking-area which will consider also the level of functional density and the polarization of the target areas. This article is inspired by some stimulating papers in the international literature, including some linked to the Neapolitan transportation school, which has always been very sensitive to these problems, probably also because Naples urban reality is a meaningful example in this sense. The article describe a possible procedure to identify the different urban polarization due to urban functions allocated and envisage a method to charge the urban parking by considering the location dependent parking fee with a specific design for the city of Naples a very well-known city for its atavistic problem of urban parking.

Softmobility/Cybermobility nuove funzioni urbane e mobilità digitale

The potential of substituting the physical transfer by using telecommunication was suggested already at the end of the 19th century. Replacing the physical transfer with a telematics flow, moving the bits and not the atoms (Mitchell, 1995), can be considered a form of “sustainable mobility” that does not produce strong impacts on the urban physical system. The cybermobility can be therefore considered as a form of soft mobility which allows a virtual transfer in order to reach an urban activity for a specific service (administrative, training, business, tourist, information one etc.). Unfortunately the several studies on this subject do not confirm the replacing effect. This paper suggests the overturn of the thought by using an approach which chiefly considers the city activities (functions) and their power of acftracting the flows of mobility inside the urban system. In particular, it should be considered the possibility that those functions could undergo a process of “virtualization” thanks to the spreading of new technologies in the way through which citizens use the city. The possibility of working out procedures capable of quantifying the modifications produced and calculating the (real and/or potential) values of transformation on the territory offers new opportunities of governing also the “invisible” transformations generated by the spreading of net-society.

Alta velocità, nuova contiguità urbana temporale e nascita di sistemi macrofunzionali connessi

L’articolo propone una riflessione sulla possibile nascita di nuovi sistemi funzionali urbani creati dalla attivazione delle linee TAV fra grandi citta italiane. Attraverso il richiamo dell’interpretazione sistemica della citta si propone una tassonomia delle possibili relazioni che potrebbero instaurarsi fra i sistemi urbani connessi ed in particolare fra i poli di Roma e Napoli che originano una nuova “Joint city”: RoNa. Infine si analizza la possibilita della creazione di attivita urbane “ponte” in grado di funzionare in entrambi i centri urbani anche grazie a protocolli amministrativi comuni e condivisi.