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Cities are small-scale complex socio-ecological systems, that host around 60% of world population. Ecosystem Services (ES) provided by urban ecosystems offer multiple benefits necessary to cope with present and future urban challenges. These ES include microclimate regulation, runoff control, as well as opportunities for mental and physical recreation, affecting citizen’s health and wellbeing. Creating a balance between urban development, land take containment, climate adaptation and availability of Urban Green Areas and their related benefits, can improve the quality of the lives of the inhabitants, the economic performance of the city and the social justice and cohesion aspects. This work starts analysing current literature around the topic of Ecosystem Services (ES), Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) and Nature-based Solutions (NBS) and their integration within current European and International sustainability policies. Then, the thesis focuses on the role of ES, GBI and NBS towards urban sustainability and resilience setting the basis to build the core methodological and conceptual approach of this work. The developed ES-based conceptual approach provides guidance on how to map and assess ES, to better inform policy making and to give the proper value to ES within urban context. The proposed interdisciplinary approach navigates the topic of mapping and assessing ES benefits in terms of regulatory services, with a focus on climate mitigation and adaptation, and cultural services, to enhance wellbeing and justice in urban areas. Last, this thesis proposes a trans-disciplinary and participatory approach to build resilience over time around all relevant urban ES. The two case studies that will be presented in this dissertation, the city of Bologna and the city of Barcelona, have been used to implement, tailor and test the proposed conceptual framework, raising valuable inputs for planning, policies and science.

The research investigates the interaction between social innovation practices and urban planning, assuming as a case study and field of application the city of Bologna, observed from the point of view of the production of urban policies and with respect to the places where it is practiced. Social innovation are localised actions tackling current urban complexities with micro-scale practices of service and urban production, by which new urban actors find answers to social needs, which are less afforded by the market and the public sectors. Planning and social innovation practices are two dimensions working in the city in different but complementary ways, subject to a mismatch. Through the lenses of interaction, the research explores the context of Bologna, a paradigmatic study and application field, a laboratory of innovative policies where a tradition of collective civic initiatives intertwines with a more responsible institutional planning framework. After drawing from area-based policies of Berlin and Barcelona, the thesis reads the role of specific intermediate places, mediators in bridging the level of institutions and the practices. Through an inventory and a cross-cutting taxonomy of intermediate places, the research draws the knowledge to inform a new urban model for the city of Bologna, aimed at overtake the mismatches by enabling the practices to act, allowing urban planning to frame them in a cross-fertilisation dimension. The proposed urban diagrammatic model, foresees intermediate places as local socio-urban observatories for research and development, interacting with both institutions and communities. The goal is to critically explore the limits and widen the meaning of the capacity of action of social innovation practices engaging in mutual-learning with the city. The model suggests a new possibility for reflection on urban planning as a more flexible approach, which translates the numerous experiences of the city into alternatives and multiple visions.

La presente tesi si occupa del territorio agricolo periurbano, ovvero aree coltivate che si collocano ai margini dell’espansione della città e che possiedono al contempo sia caratteristiche di ruralità che di urbanità. L’obiettivo della ricerca è offrire un contributo all’analisi delle aree agricole periurbane nel caso di una città di dimensioni medio-piccole; il caso di studio scelto per condurre questa indagine è il territorio periurbano di Cesena. La prima fase della ricerca è consistita in un’indagine sul territorio periurbano sia sotto il profilo teorico che per quanto riguarda le pratiche. A partire dalla lettura del testo Campagne urbane di Pierre Donadieu, la ricerca individua nel contesto italiano diversi punti di vista, non del tutto contrapposti quanto piuttosto complementari, sulle aree periurbane: un approccio ecologico, un approccio “territorialista” e posizioni che considerano l’agricoltura come materiale per la costruzione di un nuovo paesaggio. Vi sono, inoltre, numerosi progetti di intervento sulle aree agricole periurbane che sono stati individuati e classificati in quattro categorie: piani paesaggistici regionali, parchi agricoli, piani strategici alla scala urbana ed esperienze agricole di prossimità. Successivamente, il lavoro si è concentrato sullo studio della pianificazione regionale e degli strumenti urbanistici locali per capire come essi trattano il territorio agricolo periurbano. L’indagine su Cesena, infine, è stata condotta attraverso la sovrapposizione di un reticolo a maglia regolare sul territorio e sullo studio dei settori in cui ricadevano gli “ambiti agricoli periurbani” definiti dagli strumenti urbanistici. Analizzando le caratteristiche di tutte le aree è stato possibile individuare cinque categorie di territorio agricolo periurbano: residenziale, produttivo, infrastrutturale, agricolo, naturale. Per ogni categoria sono state analizzate dettagliatamente un’area campione (tra quelle ricadenti negli “ambiti agricoli periurbani”) e un’area comparativa (con caratteristiche simili). Sulla base di queste indagini sono state individuate alcune strategie progettuali, che potrebbero essere inserite nel nuovo strumento urbanistico comunale., This PhD thesis is about the peri-urban agricultural territory situated around the expansion of the cities. It consists of agricultural areas in the middle of suburban districts and rural zones closed to consolidated city. The purpose of this research is to offer a contribution to the analysis of contemporary rural condition in the peri-urban areas of a small-average dimension city; the case study is the territory of Cesena. The first step of the research consists in the investigation about peri-urban areas both in theoretical and in practical aspects. Starting from the book Campagnes urbaines of Pierre Donadieu, the research identifies some different points of view about peri-urban areas in the Italian context: the ecological approach, the ‘territorial’ approach and some positions that considers the agriculture like a tool to design urban spaces. There are many Italian and European projects about peri-urban areas that in this research are classified in four categories: territorial plans, agricultural parks, urban scale strategic plans and experience of agriculture of proximity. After that the research focuses on the study of the regional regulations and of the local plans that govern the peri-urban agricultural territory of Cesena. In the analysis of Cesena peri-urban territory a regular matrix has been overlapped on the whole territory getting a partition in equal areas. This operation allows to analyse the particular characteristics of each area, and to recognise five different types of peri-urban territory: residential, productive, infrastructural, agricultural and natural. For each type we have selected one ‘sample area’ (between areas including ‘ambiti agricoli periurbani’) and one ‘comparative area’ (between all the other areas having similar characteristics of ‘sample area’) analysing them in detail. This survey allows to give out some planning strategies for the regulation of Cesena peri-urban territory; this urban policies should be included in the next City Plan.