Ricerc@Sapienza

URBAN DEVELOPMENT ─

Since the PhD dissertation, the study of city and urban organization has been one of the principal themes in my research and publications.

In the beginning, my studies were dedicated to the quantitative analysis of the city functional structure, using the spatial distribution of economic activities and service as an indicator of urban dynamics and evolution processes;  at the same time, the aim of these studies was the trialing of the statistical methods and representation technics most useful for economic geography research. Then, my interest for urban development resulted in many publications about a) urban settlements (definition, measurement and planning questions about sprawl; b) the spatial organization of urban economic activities, with empirical tests and theoretical discussion about the relationship between core and ring, and about the transition from the hierarchical structure to the network organization.

ROME URBAN POLICIES  ─

Even the interest for Rome began with the PhD dissertation and with the first book about the spatial organization of Rome tourism (1992). Recently, in my studies Rome has been a way to discuss the current urban policies and their direction to the promotion of competitiveness. The most recent policies and plans in Rome show this approach and the very high risk  for a Mediterranean city that wants to become a global city. The main threat is the rising gap between the material city and the ideal city, with possible consequences in terms of environmental impact, social and spatial imbalances, loss of resources. Many studies about urban policies and competitiveness, and the way they are implemented through tourism, culture, place image and branding are still in press; some of them have been collected, for their internal coherence and content, in a new book that will be published in 2012.

GLOBALIZATION. REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS─

The themes of globalization, global corporations and their spatial distribution, the rising importance of sub-national scales in globalization, rising competition and the need for innovative development models has been characterizing my recent scientific interests.

I approached these themes in two principal ways: first, the evaluation of the spatial consequences of the globalization of the economics and productive systems; second, most recently, the theoretical discussion of regional competitiveness and its definitions and measures, with particular attention to resilience. 

URBAN TOURISM

The interest for the tourism sector came at the end of the nineties. 

In my research, tourism was sometimes linked to the study about cities and urban policies, but on many occasions it has been approached in its relationship with economic development and with the very important theme of sustainability. In this perspective, special attention was therefore devoted to the theoretical discussion about models and instruments of tourism territorial analysis, and about the planning decisions in the field of tourism; one particular theme of interest was the most useful geographical scale for tourism analysis and sustainable planning in post-fordist era. This research is primarily geographic, but it has the aim to encourage the multidisciplinary discussion about the relationship between tourism, territory and sustainable development, and about the way economic geography could cooperate to promote post-fordist tourism.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The critical evaluation of planning methods and models broadly characterizes  my researches, particularly in the fields of cities, competitiveness and tourism.

 I have gone into some of the European Union planning principles and models, and I have discussed the question of their adaptability to Italy and Italian regions. Particular interest was devoted to the general principles of subsidiarity and governance, and to the spatial planning model of polycentrism. In these fields, economic geography could cooperate to the definition of innovative methods and models for spatial analysis and sustainable planning. What is at stake is the production of geographical models that are able to capture and to represent the territorial development capabilities, in order to realize spatial structure that could be polycentric at the settlement and economic levels; only with new instruments of analysis and planning would it be possible to grant sustainable and cohesive development models. Recently, I've been engaged in Environmental Justice research in italian Hazardous Sites.