The overall aim of project "Cities in transition" is to investigate the recent transformations of cities in the framework of a more general, long-term view, on the evolution of urban contexts.
The research follows an interdisciplinary approach that intends to integrate legal, sociological, political and economic competences to assess, through the analysis of specific case studies at a local level (specifically, in the urban context of the municipality of Rome), whether a new design culture, based on the involvement of different actors and the implementation of small-scale interventions, can be successful in transforming public spaces as the catalysts of new processes of urban regeneration, characterized by new political, economic and social relationships, new democratic rules, etc.
More specifically, the project will investigate the "informal aspects" of these social actions aimed at using and reusing urban spaces and will provide a comparative analysis with other local social experiences in Italy and abroad. In short, the project aims to: i) define a shared glossary between the different disciplines, as a basis for an integrated research work; ii) develop a juridical analysis of the actors, activities and tools involved in regeneration; ii) evaluate the costs and benefits, other than the risk factors, of the different available options; iii) analyze the individual and collective actors involved, values and types of relationships; iv) verify the broad impacts of these processes on a number of possible outcomes (economic, social, political, etc.), included the relationship between citizens and institutions and the consequent innovations in the political debate and theory. Additional spill-overs of the research activities are the creation of a set of practices able to mitigate frictions among local stakeholders and rising awareness among local authorities and citizens.
This research project will contribute to the state of the art of the literature depicted above, both in terms of the methods of analysis and the research content.
As for the methods, the project is characterized by an inherent interdisciplinary approach, gathering together key competences in different domains: economics, law, politics and sociology.
This allows us to look at the same issues with different perspectives thus providing an original analysis and a more comprehensive interpretation of the phenomena under investigation.
Specifically, the research project will focus on a set of case studies in which the processes of urban transformation are characterized by a higher degree of informality i.e., those presenting evolving paths that are outside the standard urban planning and management tools. In this respect, we reckon that the case of the municipality of Rome is the most appropriate to identify and investigate these informal processes as well as to fit in and assess the potential impacts of possible new instruments which are consistent with the most recent theoretical evolution on urban management.
It is worth noting that the existing analyses on the informal paths of urban transformation are mainly focused on developing countries whereas there is much less awareness about this issue in developed contexts.
This because it is widely believed that the latter benefit from stronger institutions and formal tools.
However, urban contexts in developed world are changing dramatically. This implies deep transformations in a set of intangible assets such as cultural heritage, social norms, environmental assets and institutions as a result of the regeneration processes of urban spaces and common-pool resources.
This research aims at:
a) identifying the actual practices of "regeneration" and "re-use" of urban spaces in a comparative perspective;
b) analyzing the local norms and legislative tools put in place to foster the regeneration processes of urban spaces as well as the interpretations of the case law;
c) providing general rules and common practices;
d) assessing the socio-economic impacts of the different options for the enhancement of common-pool resources in urban contexts;
e) proposing new competences for the local authorities and eventually designing the most appropriate skills and training needs.
These research activities have strong policy implications since they provide an assessment of the effective implementation of concrete experiences of "regeneration" and management of urban spaces in the municipality of Rome.
This fosters also the mission of Sapienza University as incubator for new thinking and practices for the benefit of, private and public, local stakeholders.
In this perspective, this research project also fosters the activities already in place in the "Comune Condiviso" Laboratory, which has been created in the Political Science Department in 2018.
Moreover, the Sapienza Laboratory could serve as the management body for the follow up activities of the project.
Additional spillovers of the research project are the following:
i) the creation of a new georeferenced interactive database which will be available "open access" for scholars and stakeholders;
ii) the creation, to the best of our knowledge, of a first shared interdisciplinary glossary meant as a background reference for further analyses on the transition of urban contexts;
iii) the availability of a set of practices able to mitigate frictions among stakeholders involved in the local processes of enhancement and management of urban spaces;
iv) the adoption of specific dissemination activities - carried out by Sapienza ComCon Laboratory aimed at fostering the exchange of best practices among stakeholders (formal and informal) as well as awareness among local authorities and citizens.