The European Union identifies the cultural heritage of cities as the main driver of development strategies. From this perspective, adaptive reuse can play a decisive role not only in terms of increasing the life cycle of the heritage but also as an urban strategy capable of generating new economic, cultural, and social values, thus supporting innovative dynamics of local development. The aim is to propose an integrated evaluation model based on the combined use of multi-criteria techniques, which helps to classify adaptive reuse strategies of unused cultural heritage assets and supports decision-makers in the implementation of development strategies in vulnerable contexts. The case study focuses on the potential reuse of some historical fortifications located along the coasts of the Strait of Messina in Southern Italy. The results obtained show that the proposed model can be a useful decision support tool, in contexts characterized by high complexity, able to guarantee the transparency of the decision-making process, and in which it is necessary to highlight the elements that influence the dynamics of the choice for the construction of shared development strategies.

In the current scientific debate, cities represent the contexts in which resources, capital, skills, and talents are concentrated and, at the same time, they are places where many challenges are concentrated regarding environmental (pollution, waste, climate change), economic (unemployment, social exclusion, well-being), political (instability in governance processes, lack of strategic planning), and cultural (training, creativity and innovation) dimensions. The city and historic centers in particular, are able to experiment the paradigm shift from a linear economy to a circular economy, in which synergic, fair, and inclusive processes capable of activating new forms of urban productivity and social and economic innovation are promoted. In particular, the European Commission identifies cultural heritage as the main driver of development and supports strategies in which it is considered as one of the founding elements of possible transformations, which can be activated through mixed top-down/bottom-up approaches, in the short and long term. In this perspective, cultural heritage can play a decisive role in terms of the urban strategy capable of generating new economic, cultural, and social values, which trigger innovative dynamics of local development. To address current urban challenges, this paper attempts to use a multi-criteria analysis to decision support, starting with a Multi-Stakeholder Decision Analysis (M-SDA), in order to assist decision makers in choosing suitable scenarios to trigger circular development processes, taking into account the role of cultural heritage in a systemic landscape perspective. The result is a hybrid methodological approach for designing complex urban regeneration processes able to assess which new uses/functions and potential actions, identified by the involved community, can trigger a circular development model which could be more suitable to implement a model of “culture-led” and “community-driven” development.

The purpose of this research is to illustrate, through a case study, a multilevel decision-making process able to support the decision maker in optimizing investment choices for the efficient allocation of public resources, with specific reference to recovery and adaptation to the reuse of unused historical public heritage. During the evaluation process, two methods in particular were combined according to a multiphase design: (i) a multi-criteria analysis to identify the Highest and Best Use among alternative reuse scenarios and (ii) a Discounted Cash Flow Analysis to support verification of the financial feasibility of the investment, in the hypothesis of an enhancement concession in a public–private partnership. Each method was applied in parallel to the evolution of the different design scenarios. The results of the study show that hybrid approaches are a promising line of research in the field of evaluation and urban design, applied to cultural heritage.

This paper discuss the thematic of public-private economic negotiation in the realization of urban regeneration programs. The Complex Urban Programs (PUC) represent a generation of planning instruments generally in variation to ordinary instruments of general planning (PRG). These instruments found its legitimacy on new forms of concerted planning, in which the objectives are the effectiveness and efficiency of the public administration and the most important point of view are the quality and transparency of the negotiation between public and private. In these circumstances for the purposes of the feasibility, the arguments of urban planning must necessarily be supported by economic-financial considerations resulting from appraisals of the benefits financial and the new real estate values generated by the decision to promote the program in PRG variant. Particular attention must be paid on the modality for consultation between the public government, the owners and the developers when they comparing on mutual convenience as part of the PUC: the negotiation activities is the time during which the public body can capture a portion of land value generated by the choices of modify the PRG. The aim of this paper is the presentation of the economic negotiation between public and private that the Municipality of Reggio Calabria (Italy), with the technical and scientific support of the university laboratory of economic and appraisal evaluation (LaborEst) has promoted in recent years through two PUC. The two Complex Urban Programs are both located in the south of cities of Reggio Calabria (Italy). The paper describes in particular the model for appraisal of extrastandard charged by private entities participating in the two programs. The model developed by both authors is the result of their common research.

This paper focuses on an integrated multi-methodological evaluation process; it aimed at supporting public administrators in developing alternative strategies for intervention in urban planning and urban regeneration processes that focus on abandoned urban areas located in a central position. In order to transform crisis areas into areas with new opportunities, starting with their redevelopment and enhancement, the article proposes a selection of evaluation tools that can support and steer the decision maker’s choice of alternative scenarios for intervention. For this purpose, the contribution develops an integrated system of evaluation methodologies for decision-making support, which includes different components and a plurality of points of view, even of conflicting types, providing a more transparent description of the decision-making process. The methodological approach was applied to a pilot case study that concerned the choice of priority intervention between two abandoned and blighted areas located in the central area of the city of Reggio Calabria.

Starting from the most recent international debate on the theme of cultural landscape, this study explores the theme of landscape as a ‘common good’ and as a field of investigation and experimentation of an innovative model of long-term sustainable tourism development. In this context, the document illustrates a multi-stakeholder spatial decision-making process based on an evaluation approach that is useful to support decision-makers in defining improvement strategies for resilient landscapes. The methodology was experimented on and tested as part of the ‘Sila Labscape’ project conducted in Sila National Park (Southern Italy), a UNESCO site of excellence. The purpose of the study is to support the park’s community in acquiring a greater awareness of the values and resources present within the park and to stimulate co-design for the enhancement and management of environmental and cultural sites. Starting from the representation of the landscape perceived by users, it is possible to trace the values and meanings of the most attractive places. The most relevant results concern the identification of perceived landscape values, the recognition of shared values, and their consequent use to map ‘places of value’. The elaboration, structuring, and evaluation processes allow the tracing of new touristic routes and the expression of shared intersubjective perception that are useful for supporting decision-makers in the development of potential integrated development strategies and actions.