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Energy communities using renewable energy sources directly contributes to reduction of climate-change gas emissions and energy consumption in the European Union. In addition, energy communities enable citizens to transform from (passive) consumers to prosumers (active consumers and producers) and to play a proactive role in the deployment of energy transition in urban areas. As the transposition of European rules about energy communities into the national laws of EU Member States is very articulated and differentiated, this study proposes a framework to analyze and compare regulatory and financial instruments. This framework is applied to the analysis of the case of Italy and Spain, as representative of European states in which collective actions in the energy sector are not very common, with the aim of highlighting the main critical issues affecting the effectiveness of energy transition strategies and assessing the economic feasibility for energy communities. Analyzing regulations and procedures, including at the local level, it appears that municipalities play an important role as promoters of initiatives among citizen communities, while complex bureaucratic procedure is the most critical issue in both countries and can significantly hinder the spread of energy communities. With respect to the different financial incentives available for the formation of energy communities in Italy and Spain, a few cases studies are hypothesized, calculating the most relevant cost-effectiveness indicators, e.g. Net Present Value. It turns out that a project with the same characteristics achieves greater economic feasibility in Italy than in Spain, depending on the type and size of incentives set by national laws, and, above all, that financial incentives are necessary to make the formation of energy communities cost-effective and thus to achieve direct citizen involvement in energy transition actions.

The provision of affordable housing for low-income households is a very complex issue long debated in many countries around the world. Social Housing (SH) is one of the tools for achieving fairness, social sustainability and economic feasibility, and is interrelated with politics, ethics and economics, as well as the environment, architecture and technology. In other words, national and local policy, and also public and private financial resources are all needed to provide SH. SH also involves social and urban transformations and is, consequently, linked to urban planning and redevelopment projects, real estate market dynamics and cooperation between public and private stakeholders. Furthermore, decision-making on SH policies and projects has to be supported by assessments of economic feasibility and social and environmental sustainability. This volume present studies on various topics to recompose the multi-faceted subjects of Social Housing within a unified framework.

Socioeconomic and functional mixité has been an objective placed at the basis of urban development to guide the transformation processes of urban areas, associating it with social inclusion as opposed to the morphological and spatial segregation, often caused by monofunctional zoning. The implementation of social mixité involves all social groups and, particularly, migrant communities that, in turn, are formed by groups with different cultures, nationalities, resources and income levels. The location choices of migrants and native residents produce an ever-changing urban geography of residential, commercial and service activities that directly impact on the real estate market. Migrants’ active participation in the urban mixité reaches its highest degree of social visibility in their use of commercial properties located on main streets, where they compete and/or cooperate with native-operated businesses. This study investigated the use of commercial properties in three main streets of Palermo during 2018-2020 to analyze the evolution of functional and socioeconomic mixité. The findings show what capacity migrant communities have to permeate the urban fabric with their commercial activities and to participate in the local real estate market currently characterized by high vacancy rates.

The encounter between Appraisal and Valuation and other social sciences, such as Geography and Urban Planning, but also Philosophy and Psychology, can be considered as a valuable opportunity to combine approaches expressing different points of view on the same phenomena. The interpretative paradigms and opera-tional tools of Appraisal and Valuation are therefore questioned and should be re-vised to be adopted in the appraisal practice or to support decision-making pro-cesses related to real estate market and urban, territorial and environmental plan-ning, according to a perspective of social inclusion and multiculturalism.

To analyze the issue of cities-migrants interactions, as well as social-monetary values interactions, it is necessary to place it in a “higher” context, in order not to risk losing the necessary connection with universal ethical principles, and in a “broader” one, in which understanding complexity on a global scale interprets local conditions. The study of migration flows and urban dynamics, as well as housing markets, through theoretical paradigms and scientific tools from different disciplines provides an opportunity to learn and compare, dialogue and interface with new keys to understanding the problem, or with alternative interpretations and unprecedented perspectives in the path of multiculturalism, which has become an inescapable premise for the formation of an inclusive society. Despite different scientific and cultural backgrounds, many concepts emerge as cross-cutting, weaving a network of connections that transcends supposed disciplinary “boundaries” and, at the same time, highlights the possibility of expressing different visions and interpretations. This plurality of disciplinary expertise and cultural sensitivities, intellectual passion and willingness to confrontation can be represented by a chain of words—such as global, local, glocal, cities, territories, values, language, human dignity, human capital, citizenship, identity, cohabitation, public space, urban space—and constitutes the connotative trait of this volume in which the science of Appraisal and Valuation “measures” and compares itself with other social sciences.

L’obiettivo della tesi è lo sviluppo di un modello “Multiple Criteria Group Decision Method (MCGDM)” di supporto alla decisione in ambito pubblico in scelte infrastrutturali in un contesto decisionale di gruppo. Lo studio è articolato in principali filoni: da un lato (a) l’applicazione degli strumenti e i metodi tipici della valutazione multicriteriale, tecnica di valutazione che cerca di razionalizzare il processo di scelta dei policy makers secondo le priorità da questi dichiarate; dall’altro (b) l’approfondimento di come interessi, preferenze e giudizi di numerosi individui possono essere aggregati in una decisione collettiva in un contesto decisionale di gruppo, di come supportare queste decisioni collettive, come studiarne le dinamiche, evidenziarne i conflitti, indagarne le possibili aggregazioni di gruppi di interesse e le opposizioni più significative; infine (c) analizzare il ruolo ed il valore delle infrastrutture nel territorio regionale e isontino. Lo studio è stato condotto mediante una ricognizione sia della letteratura scientifica che attraverso l’analisi della pianificazione per i trasporti e la logistica (comunitaria, nazionale, regionale), ma anche attraverso ripetuti contatti diretti con i funzionari degli enti interessati. Si inserisce quindi nel contesto della valutazione della progettazione territoriale strategica e permette di considerare diversi aspetti (economico, sociale, ambientale) al fine di compiere scelte infrastrutturali sostenibili. È necessario anche evidenziare che la valutazione si è articolata sul piano temporale (30 anni) confrontando in modo coerente le prestazioni delle varie alternative su orizzonti temporali diversi; questione poco approfondita nella letteratura scientifica sui modelli qualitativi di tipo multicriteriale, specie in contesti decisionali di gruppo. Grazie a tale ricerca è stata messa a punto una procedura di valutazione che, adottando metriche qualitative, consente di indagare sull’equilibrio tra molteplici istanze, evidenziando le asimmetrie tra vantaggi e svantaggi per i principali attori in gioco.

This article analyzes inner and marginal territories in four Italian peripheral contexts by first discussing some of the results and future steps of the “B4R Branding4Resilience” research project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Research from 2020 to 2023. The overall research is based on three phases: (1) the exploration phase to analyze socio-economic data and territorial dynamics; (2) the co-design phase involving local actors to develop ideas for a selected pilot case; (3) the co-visioning phase where a future transformative perspective for the whole area was shared with the institutions. The article focuses on phase 1 and presents some first results achieved by the application of a methodological approach based on the integration of different qualitative and quantitative tools and methods. The results outline the exploration of the four selected territories through data analyses and mapping, perceptive-narrative explorations, field research, and explorative designs. The concept of peripherality is addressed in a critical way, trying to go beyond standardized definitions, including interdisciplinarity as an essential tool for territorial enhancement and branding. The main interpretation findings not only outline possible strategies and actions for the four analyzed inner territories, but also foster the application of the proposed methodological approach in other complex socio-economic contexts.

Social housing is an instrument of housing policies to support those groups of people who are disadvantaged due to particular economic weaknesses and/or social relational fragility. Consequently, to achieve the objective of social sustainability, the rents of social housing must be below the market rents and low enough to be affordable. Italian law has set several rent thresholds which are based on local territorial agreements between landlords and renters associations. This article aims to examine whether these thresholds generate social fairness and housing affordability within each city and between different cities, or instead inequalities and spatial asymmetries. A cluster analysis is applied to study whether the goal of fairness is achieved, while the effectiveness of providing housing affordability is assessed by comparing the benchmarked rents with those of the national ministerial Real Estate Market Observatory. Two metropolitan cities—one in the north and another in the south of Italy—with different social and economic characteristics were chosen as case studies. The results show that variations in rents, location, and housing quality are fairly consistent within urban areas and cities. However, the benchmarked rents are not consistently related to the market rents and are often higher than the latter, failing to meet the provision of affordable housing that was the primary goal of the law.

Green infrastructure in urban environments provides a wide range of ecological, social, aesthetic, and health co-benefits. Urban plant covers in particular contribute to improved outdoor environmental conditions that, in turn, influence the energy behavior of buildings and their indoor thermo-hygrometric comfort performance. Within this context, this study illustrates a methodology aimed at verifying the economic feasibility of alternative types of green areas for public and private stakeholders, which are analyzed as passive energy measures. Therefore, our methodology integrates approaches from different disciplines and consists of a microclimatic analysis of different vegetation scenarios and of the outdoor comfort level, an evaluation of the energy needs of a sample of houses, and an economic feasibility estimation considering different scenarios and public and private investors. The methodology is illustrated through its application to a suburban district of the Sicilian city of Trapani in the South of Italy, considered representative of Mediterranean climate conditions. Results showed significant differences between the scenario outcomes depending on the type of vegetation used in the green areas and put in evidence how economic feasibility for some stakeholders may be achieved in the management phase if adequate incentives equal to the planting cost are assumed.

Le misure relative al contenimento del Covid-19 hanno cambiato profondamente i nostri stili di vita nei mesi scorsi e ancora oggi, soprattutto per quanto concerne l’uso dello spazio pubblico. Improvvisamente lo spazio privato è diventato predominante a causa delle impellenti necessità dettate dal distanziamento sociale, talvolta con effetti drammatici. Tale situazione ha fatto emergere con tutta evidenza la necessità di ripensare le politiche pubbliche sulla questione abitativa e la dotazione dei servizi, suggerendo allo stesso tempo, come possibile strategia di prevenzione del contagio, il riequilibrio territoriale tra sistemi urbani densamente abitati e aree interne del Paese in declino demografico. Particolare attenzione va a nostro avviso rivolta a quelle del Sud d’Italia, caratterizzate da basse densità di popolazione, disponibilità di patrimonio edilizio non utilizzato e standard ambientali più elevati. Obiettivo del contributo è una proposta metodologica rivolta alle amministrazioni pubbliche locali per delineare politiche di ripopolamento dei comuni delle aree interne, come precondizione per la prevenzione del contagio. Un ragionamento intorno a forme integrate di housing sociale diffuso nel tessuto storico e l’adeguata dotazione di servizi possono fornire una soluzione efficace, con riguardo in particolare alle categorie sociali più fragili ed esposte ai rischi connessi alle pandemie. The measures relating to Covid-19 containment changed deeply our lifestyles in the past months and still now, especially for what regards the use of public space. Private space suddenly became predominant for the impellent needs of the social distancing, sometimes with dramatic effects. This situation highlighted the importance of rethinking public policies on housing and services provision and at the same time suggested as a possible strategy for contagion prevention the rebalancing between urban systems densely inhabited and internal areas of the country in demographic decline. Particularly, attention will be paid to a southern internal area where population density is low, high-unused housing stock is available and environmental standards are higher. The objective is to build a methodological proposal for supporting municipalities’ repopulation policies in inland areas, taking into account contagion prevention. Reasoning about integrated forms of social housing spread throughout the historical fabric and the adequate services provision can provide an effective solution, with particular regard to the most vulnerable social categories, which are most exposed to pandemics risks.

Two Life-Cycle Assessments (LCAs) were conducted to evaluate the environmental performances of selected novel eco-intensification innovations for the treatment and valorisation of sludge and fish mortalities from finfish aquaculture. The first innovation is based on a new process for filtering and drying particles from the reject water from a Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS), with end-of-life recovery of nutrients and biomass to be reused as organic fertiliser or as energy source. The second process is based on a new device for drying fish mortalities and reusing the end-product as ingredient in the pet food industry or as energy source. Innovations refer to a functional unit of 1 ton of farmed fish and of fish mortalities, respectively, and were tested with a RAS for smolt production within the physical system boundary of a Norwegian facility. A set of standard indicators was selected for the Life-Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA). The results indicate that the new processes compare well with the established ones, showing a marked decrease in most impact categories: indicators decrease by −12% through to −67% when sludge treatment innovations are applied, and by more than −86% after novel changes about fish mortality, with water consumption instead increasing by +7% and up to +50%, respectively. Furthermore, the analysis provided insights which could lead to improve their environmental performances.

Pakistan is a resource-constrained country, poor in municipal and healthcare facilities. Existing healthcare structures in the country are often over-crowded, and an effective monitoring and assessment of their sustainability is therefore crucial. In this study, a systemic approach is outlined to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the largest and sole public hospital in the major city of Gujranwala, in the Punjab region of Pakistan. The Emergy (spelled with ``m'') Accounting (EMA) method is applied. Its operationalization allows to keep track of the amount of energy that was consumed in direct and indirect transformations to make a product or service. Relevant data include the hospital requirements in terms of energy, water, products, labor, and services. The EMA results offer a supply-side geobiosphere-oriented perspective. Emergy indicators show that the hospital is indirectly responsible for a significant stress on the environment, that might be decreased by an increased efficiency in the resource use. On the other hand, a hospital is a complex system, depending on skilled laborforce as well as on several fine imported medical products and related services, making it dependent on external socio-economic systems. The presented results address the geography dependent characteristics of the hospital, and can be used for benchmarking and future evaluation of similar hospitals within and across the region.

Incessanti flussi migratori si muovono verso nazioni o città in cui trovare condizioni di vita migliori sospinti da sperequazioni economiche, instabilità politiche e sociali, conflitti bellici ed emergenze ambientali, e generano perturbazioni, reali o percepite, sull’organizzazione sociale, ed economica dei territori. I mutamenti dei sistemi valoriali, sociali, spaziali ed economici conseguenti ai flussi migratori sono stati dibattuti durante il convegno SIEV ‘Valori Spazi Migrazioni. Identità e alterità nella citta multiculturale’, che si è svolto nel mese di ottobre del 2020. Lo studio di questi fenomeni coinvolge numerose scienze sociali rispetto alle quali la comunità italiana di studiosi di Estimo e Valutazioni può fornire il proprio contributo originale. Questo articolo si propone di delineare un quadro delle possibili intersezioni tra la disciplina estimativa e altre scienze come Filosofia del linguaggio, Etno-psicologia, Filosofia del diritto, Geografia, Urbanistica, Progettazione architettonica, che possono condurre verso la costruzione di un comune dominio consensuale linguistico e di linee di ricerca convergenti per indagare la complessità delle tematiche inerenti alle migrazioni. Alcune intersezioni riguardano il riconoscimento delle pluralità di identità e dei diritti dei migranti, la sostenibilità e l’equità multiculturale, il ruolo del linguaggio nella costruzione delle relazioni con l’Altro e con i valori economici (valore d’uso privato, valore di scambio e valore d’uso sociale). A partire dal ruolo del linguaggio nella società multiculturale, può essere tracciata una ‘geografia della significazione’ che è strettamente interrelata ad altre geografie, quelle delle politiche, dei diritti, del lavoro, dei conflitti sociali e dei valori immobiliari. Sono questi i contesti spaziali e sociali in cui sono state elaborate alcune interessanti ricerche economico-estimative, anche se non si tratta ancora di un corpus di studi in grado di rappresentare in modo sistemico le differenze presenti nel territorio nazionale italiano (ad es. tra città/regioni settentrionali e meridionali). Rimangono, quindi, completamente da esplorare le possibilità di avviare sia ricerche in collaborazione e contaminazione con altre scienze sociali sulla necessità di inclusione sociale e di interculturalità, sia il rinnovamento del paradigma interpretativo e degli strumenti operativi della disciplina estimativa per rispondere alla domanda di stime in ambito immobiliare e di modelli di valutazione a supporto dei processi decisionali connessi ai fenomeni migratori. Incessant migratory flows move towards nations or cities where they can find better living conditions, driven by economic inequalities, political and social instability, war conflicts and environmental emergencies, and generate real or perceived perturbations in the social and economic organization of territories. The changes in value, social, spatial and economic systems resulting from migration flows were debated during the SIEV conference 'Values Spaces Migrations. Identity and Otherness in the Multicultural City', which took place in October 2020. The study of these phenomena involves many social sciences to which the Italian community of Estimate and Valuation scholars can provide its original contribution. This article aims to outline a picture of the possible intersections between the discipline of estimation and other sciences such as Philosophy of Language, Ethno-psychology, Philosophy of Law, Geography, Urban Planning, Architectural Design, which can lead towards the construction of a common linguistic consensual domain and convergent lines of research to investigate the complexity of issues related to migration. Some intersections concern the recognition of the plurality of identities and the rights of migrants, multicultural sustainability and equity, the role of language in the construction of relationships with the Other and with economic values (private use value, exchange value and social use value). Beginning with the role of language in multicultural society, a 'geography of signification' can be traced that is closely interrelated to other geographies, those of politics, rights, labor, social conflict and property values. These are the spatial and social contexts in which some interesting economic-estimative research has been carried out, even if it is not yet a body of studies capable of representing in a systematic way the differences present in the Italian national territory (e.g. between northern and southern cities/regions). Therefore, the possibilities of initiating both collaborative research and contamination with other social sciences on the need for social inclusion and interculturality, as well as the renewal of the interpretative paradigm and of the operational tools of the estimative discipline to respond to the demand for estimates in the real estate field and for valuation models to support decision-making processes connected to migratory phenomena, remain to be fully explored.

Urban regions are recognised as driving forces of the global economy as well as the main sources of social inequality. In recent decades, particularly, housing access has become a serious problem, not only for the most disadvantaged population, but also for the middle class, as a result of economic crises and despite of prices decline in the housing market. In urban regions with high population density, some social groups face problems of housing affordability that depend not only on market prices but also on income availability. The contribution proposes a methodology for income-threshold assessment through a combination between the ratio income and the residual income approaches, which is applied to two different Sicilian urban regions: the urban region of Palermo (UR PA) and the urban region of Syracuse and Ragusa (UR SR-RG). A focus on low-income levels in high residential tension municipalities helps to highlight the distribution of the housing access problem. The analysis can provide a cognitive support for developing strategies and planning tools or for implementing actions that are oriented to address the housing issue.

The European Union’s environmental policies actively promote the transition to a low-carbon society and to sustainable energy systems that improve people’s quality of life and do not negatively impact the natural environment. To achieve these goals, the European Union funded several programs to pilot energy efficiency measures for buildings and districts and, lately, launched the European Green Deal. The results of these experimentations have shown that often the economic feasibility of retrofitting interventions is not achieved without public grants. This contribution aims to analyze the influence of financial parameters on the profitability of projects of energy efficient districts. The study is based on the data from the demo sites of the CITyFiED program (Soma in Turkey and Laguna de Duero in Spain) that are reworked according to new several alternative scenarios, differentiated by cost financing and amount of public grants.

Health services represent a cornerstone to ensure well-being and human rights, particularly in deprived areas. The resource cost and appropriate use for the implementation of a top-quality hospital in Sudan are here investigated. An emerging approach such as systems-based Emergy Accounting is applied to assess its sustainability and resilience, also relying on Life-Cycle Assessment data to calculate some new unit emergy values. Very few similar studies have addressed civil works so far, even less bioclimatic buildings, while the focus on health systems is an absolute novelty. Particular attention is paid to design in adverse climate and economic conditions, to the humanitarian nongovernmental organisation running the hospital, and to the cutting-edge medical staff and technologies imported from abroad, also letting local practitioners train in excellence medicine. The system's direct and indirect socio-ecological requirements are expressed as emergy (resource investment) per patient-day, per cardiac surgical operation, per outpatient visit, and per year. From a quantitative viewpoint, these indicators represent a benchmark for improvement scenarios, comparison with new studies in a deserving field, and future investments, driven by effective healthcare policies. They also provide an overview of the efforts required by nature and society to ensure a human right in conditions of scarcity. Besides the possibility to lower a hospital's environmental impact (sustainability-oriented) and to keep it functioning over time in changing climate, resource, societal, economic, and geo-political scenarios (resilience-oriented), this study leads to original remarks upon societal priorities and upon the challenges of guaranteeing high-quality health systems in an uncertain century.

This study deals with the perspective of circular economy (CE) transition in the Construction and Demolition Waste Management (C&DWM) system of the Metropolitan City of Naples (Italy). It assesses the current building materials stored in the existing buildings and C&DW generation, composition and management, by means of public databases, i-Tree Canopy software and SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). The final goal is to provide useful feedbacks to the city Administration and stakeholders to increase and improve the management of existing C&DW flows. The statistical database and the use of i-Tree Canopy for geographical assessment point out a large amount of building materials stocked in the existing buildings and potentially available, while results of the SWOT analysis, combined with TOWS matrix, show that the transition to CE in the C&DW management systems in the Metropolitan City of Naples still is at an early stage due to several weaknesses. The latter regard the lack of demand for recycled products, the lack of data in the end-of-life stage of recycling, and the presence of a high fraction of mixed C&DW reflecting the low adoption of reduction measures on C&D sites. Solutions are proposed with the purpose of better realigning the C&DWM system according to the CE principles as well as to increased sustainability.

“Marginal” areas are a central issue that is being discussed all over Europe. Indeed, more than 60% of the European population live in peripheral contexts outside of main urban conurbations (Data “EUROSTAT regional yearbook 2013”. Data referred to the sum of the population in ‘intermediate regions’ and in ‘rural areas’ in the EU27). Yet, the contexts addressed by the Italian National Strategy on Inner Areas (covering approximately the 60 per cent of Italy and hosting nearly 13.540 million people) are often lacking successful regional policies and systemic territorial approaches to achieve effective transformations. In order to tackle with such fragile areas, a new development path has to be defined. This paper aims to present and discuss the first results of a PRIN project, “B4R Branding4Resilience”, that investigates fragile territories around the Italian peninsula. Exploring and comparing the areas through an interdisciplinary perspective, the project aims to operatively intervene on selected contexts in Marche Region, Trento Province, Piedmont, and Sicily. A new role of these peripheral contexts in relation to growing metropolitan areas is a possibility that B4R Branding4Resilience aims to investigate.

Increasing pressure from population growth and climate change has placed various challenges to urban systems concerning the sustainable supply and use of food, energy and water. To achieve the synergistic and sustainable management of food, energy and water demand, the inter-linkages between the three subsystems should be explored. Taking Beijing as the case study reproducible in a like manner for other urban systems, this research aims to develop a household Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus dynamic model to explore the influence of various factors on the end-uses. Three main innovation points are included in this research. Firstly, long-term simulations from 2010 to 2050 can be provided in this model to quantitatively estimate climate change potential under possible management strategies. Secondly, three different levels of influencing factors of household resource consumption are included in this model at the same time, including individual level (behaviors), household level (appliances) and government level (resource prices). Thirdly, multiple scenarios combinations are analyzed in this research. The results demonstrate the complex interconnections among the household food-energy-water uses. What’ more, short-term effects, lag effects as well as lock-in effects can influence the policy effectiveness, so that policy combinations or complements are needed to enhance the effects.

Mass tourism has been creating increasing complaints and resistances in many tourist cities worldwide. The global Covid-19 health emergency has further affected the complex relationship between the activities of city dwellers and those of the tourist flows. Be the visitors present or abruptly absent, the effects of tourism on housing, labour, and the urban economy as a whole can threaten the very survival of a tourist destination. The ultimate goals of tourist-based transformations are not clear, nor their relationship with the resilience of destinations. A systemic perspective is here offered on tourism in cities, with a focus on the city that likely exhibits the highest level of tourist attraction with respect to its vulnerability, that is, Venice, Italy. Various aspects of its sustainability and resilience, along with the involved interconnection and dependency links, are taken into consideration. Currently proposed alternative scenarios are presented, and their weaknesses commented. Some implications are also addressed for sustainable and resilient transformations. The comprehension of the dynamics that drive a tourist city system, together with the study of its systemic leverage points, appear to be mandatory for effective urban policies and planning.

The European Green Deal proposes an epochal change in the European society by transforming environmental and climatic problems into opportunities and making sustainable and fair the European Union economic system. Radical changes will also concern urban redevelopment and energy efficiency measures in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve these objectives, rules and standards, as well as financial resources and assessment tools, are needed to support both urban planning and public decision process. This paper aims to analyze the existing European programs that are applied in some European smart cities, as they constitute a valuable source of information for the development of financial schemes and evaluation tools ad hoc for the Green Deal implementation. Moreover, the analysis of the pilot projects of the ZenN program has made possible to identify some critical issues regarding the economic feasibility of energy retrofit at a district scale, though further studies will be required to respond to the new assessment challenges launched by the Green Deal.

Nowadays, energy equalization is one of the many issues concerning the energy policies on the urban scale and in the perspective of reducing the Urban Heat Island effects (UHI-e). The different economic-financial profiles of the interventions implemented in the buildings having a wide range of climatic locations, typological arrangements, architectural-historical constraints, need to be coordinated within unitary local energy-environmental policies inspired by economic-financial as well as environmental issues. The renovation of existing hotels to achieve a nearly Zero-Energy performance is one of the goals of the 2050 EU’s energy policy. This paper presents the nZEB retrofit case of an existing historic hotel and proposes a step by step approach to nZEB performance with a perspective on the costs, in order to identify the most effective energy solutions. Such approach allows highlighting useful insights regarding energy and economic-financial strategies for achieving nZEB standards.

L'efficienza energetica è diventata un argomento centrale nella pianificazione e nella gestione urbana a causa del cambiamento climatico globale e delle emergenze ambientali. L'articolo analizza i modelli e le procedure che sono stati testati nel gruppo MySmartCityProgram da diversi programmi europei che promuovono misure innovative di efficienza energetica a scala di quartiere. L'analisi dei casi studio del Programma ZenN, in particolare, ha evidenziato che struttura della proprietà, erogazione di fondi pubblici e disponibilità di finanziamenti bancari sono i principali fattori critici per raggiungere o ostacolare la fattibilità finanziaria. In vista delle fasi di implementazione del Green Deal europeo che, tra le varie azioni, intende avviare una "ondata di rinnovamento" delle città e degli edifici, i risultati dello studio potrebbero essere un buon punto di partenza per discutere come progettare le procedure, gli standard e gli strumenti più adeguati per facilitare questo tipo di progetti. Energy efficiency has become a central topic in urban planning and management because of the global climate change and environmental emergencies. The paper analyzes the models and procedures that have been tested in the MySmartCityProgram group according to different European Programs that promote innovative energy efficiency measures at district scale. The study of the case studies of the ZenN Program, in particular, has showed that structure of the property, provision of public funds and availability of bank financing are the main critical factors to achieve or hinder the financial feasibility. In view of the implementation phases of the European Green Deal which, among various actions, intends to start a ‘wave of renovation’ of cities and buildings, the results of the study could be a good starting point to discuss how to design the most appropriate procedures, standards and tools to facilitate this type of projects.

Questo studio si propone di delineare una metodologia di valutazione dell’housing affordability alla scala territoriale, intesa come accessibilità finanziaria all’abitazione, in modo da ottenere un sistema di informazioni da impiegare a supporto del processo decisionale pubblico sulle politiche abitative. L’obiettivo, in particolare, è quello di individuare la domanda locale e i bisogni sociali corrispondenti alla distribuzione territoriale dei gap reddituali che impediscono l’accesso all’abitazione, in modo da intervenire con tutti gli strumenti che consentono di raggiungere una maggiore equità sociale. La metodologia procede attraverso lo studio della distribuzione territoriale della ricchezza reddituale e della ricchezza capitale costituita dai valori degli immobili a destinazione residenziale. Queste due categorie di dati sono combinate al fine del calcolo del reddito soglia, differenziato per fasce di reddito e per localizzazione delle abitazioni, che consentirebbe a un dato soggetto di accedere al mercato immobiliare. La metodologia proposta è stata applicata a un caso studio, costituito da un sistema territoriale formato da sette comuni localizzati nell’area sudorientale della Sicilia, per verificarne l’efficacia operativa. Despite the fall in price on the housing market, many households may have housing affordability problems. In order to measure the housing affordability on the territorial scale, this study proposes a methodology based on: the threshold income; the analysis of the territorial distribution of households’ incomes; the analysis of the territorial distribution of the local real estate market prices. This approach is applied to a case study, which consists of a territorial system comprising seven towns located in the south-eastern Sicily (Italy). The results allow us to appraise the gaps between housing prices and income level for household group, as well as for town and urban zone. These data is a valuable tool for the public administrations to better orientate the housing policy, to select the best model of social housing and to design the equitable parameters of social housing projects for each town.

The challenge of promoting sustainable cities and reaching the objectives developed by the European Green Deal includes the renovation of the building sector, as it is responsible for 40% of energy consumption in Europe. Regional or local public administrations have to allocate their financial resources for improving the energy performances of their building stock and to face a multidimensional problem, where different aspects – such as energy efficiency, financial-economic feasibility and environmental protection – have to be harmonized. The present study proposes a Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding model, which includes the ELECTRE TRI-nC method, for supporting the public decision process of sorting alternative energy retrofitting actions into various categories, each of them expresses different levels of overall performance. The model is applied to an Italian real case study. An experts’ panel has been involved for structuring the decision problem and discussing the results. The results show that opaque envelope insulation actions are often classified in best categories to be implemented and funded instead the upgrade of the lighting system falls in the worst category. These results are useful for local or regional public administrations to select those energy retrofitting actions that have to be financed as a priority.

Urbanization is widely recognized as a relentless trend at the global level. Nevertheless, a comprehensive assessment of urban systems able to address the future growth and decline of cities is still lacking. Urban systems today rely on abundant resources, flowing in from other regions, and their future availability and accessibility should be taken into consideration to ensure urban well-being and resilience in likely post-growth scenarios. A logical framework to address the challenge of urban planning and management to promote long-term urban system sustainability is proposed. Systems thinking and diagramming are applied, while comprehensively tracking the key material flows upon which cities depend back to their sources. First, the nexus among resources and urban activities is identified, and then its circularity is framed within a wider discourse on urban sustainability and resilience. Discussion is carried out within a two-fold perspective of both existing and newly built environments, while related economies are analyzed in order to find possible game-changing scenarios.

The phenomenon of the “houses for one Euro” is the epitome of the progressive and increasing abandonment of the inland territories in which many small towns are affected by continuous and unstoppable depopulation. This process, mostly affecting the southern and insular Italian regions, have been triggered by the quick industrial development started after the second post-war, led by the northern regions, that deeply and irreversibly modified the anthropography of the whole country until now. The impoverishment of a wide part of the Italian territory, is one of the many issues connected to the social-territorial justice that is the original topic by which appraisal and valuation, that is science of the economic value judgement, differs from other branches of the applied economics. With the prospect of an insight of the case of Calabria, the paper presents: as first some factual basic premises for defining the matters and the sense of the concept of land debt; as second some theoretical and methodological coordinates for reinterpreting “abandonment as a metaphor of being back”.

La diffusione di nuove modalità di vendita al dettaglio, come gli shopping mall, i megastore e l’e-commerce, hanno modificato i tradizionali modelli localizzativi di immobili a destinazione commerciale, incidendo anche sulle connotazioni del tessuto urbano ed extraurbano e sulla distribuzione spaziale della rendita. Anche le zone centrali delle città hanno subito trasformazioni significative, che a volte si traducono in un vero e proprio declino, soprattutto in presenza di sistemi economici locali deboli e di mercati immobiliari in recessione. Una quota rilevante di immobili a destinazione commerciale può rimanere a lungo non utilizzata per eccesso di offerta sulla domanda, poiché a fronte della cessazione di molte attività commerciali tradizionali, che non riescono più ad essere competitive, non si registra un subentro immediato da parte di nuovi soggetti economici. Il declino dei luoghi urbani centrali dipende dall’intreccio di molteplici fattori economici, sociali, culturali, ma può essere contrastato da politiche urbane orientate non soltanto alla riqualificazione fisica del tessuto urbano, ma anche al supporto di processi di coesione sociale e di multiculturalità. I migranti, provenienti da continenti diversi e portatori di modelli culturali variegati, insediandosi stabilmente nella città italiane, hanno colmato alcuni di questi vuoti localizzandovi attività di vendita al dettaglio o di erogazione di servizi rivolte in modo specifico alle loro comunità di appartenenza, oppure aperte all’intera cittadinanza. La loro presenza contribuisce, di fatto, a sostenere la domanda di immobili a destinazione commerciale, ad attenuare le minus-valorizzazioni del capitale immobiliare e a contenere la contrazione delle rendite. Questo fenomeno è stato analizzato a Palermo in alcuni assi viari del centro storico tradizionalmente vocati al commercio e diventati il luogo privilegiato di localizzazione di attività commerciali gestite da immigrati. The changes in consumer shopping behavior and in retail spaces, such as shopping malls, department stores and e-commerce, have modified the localization models of the traditional retail shops, also affecting the urban fabric and the spatial distribution of urban rent. Even the city centers have undergone significant transformations or even decline, especially if the local economic system and real estate market are weak and recessionary. A significant amount of commercial properties may have long vacancy due to excess supply, since many traditional shops close their business because they are no longer competitive and, moreover, there is no immediate takeover by new tenants. The decline of central urban areas depends on the interaction of multiple economic, social and cultural factors, but it can be countered by urban policies oriented not only to physical redevelopment of urban fabric, but also to social cohesion and multiculturalism. Migrants bearers of varied cultural values, coming from different continents and settling permanently in the Italian cities, have rented some of these empty properties by locating retail shops specifically oriented to their own communities or also to the citizens needs. The presence of migrants contributes, indeed, to support the retail real estate demand, to mitigate the minus-valorization of real estate capital and also to contain the revenues contraction. This phenomenon has been analyzed in some streets of the historic centre of Palermo that are traditionally shopping areas and have become the privileged place for locating retail shops managed by immigrants.

As many low-income households have still been facing the problem of affordable housing, in several countries governmental institutions have implemented various measures of housing policy and are supporting both the “right to housing” and the “right to buy” a dwelling at a subsidized price. Alienation of public housing is a political measure mostly directed towards low-income tenants, by which the dwellings are sold at a price set by law, assumed as a “administered” price. The gap between market and administered prices may be considered as the “value of solidarity” to be taken into account as the monetary reference of the social housing welfare policies aimed at reducing social inequities. The solidarity value approach has been implemented here to identify some measurements of the overall management efficiency (concerning the allocation of the public housing asset) and the social equity between the tenants whose “right to buy” should be fostered. The management efficiency concerns the ratio between the “administered price”, fixed according to the regulations in force, and the potential property market price; the social equity concerns the homogeneity of the prices registered over the actual transfers. The model is applied to a case study in the city of Palermo (southern Italy), where the Municipality implemented an ‘Alienation and Real Estate Development Plan’.