Integrated evaluation for the management of contemporary cities - Results of SIEV 2016

The volume comprises aselection of the best paperspresented at the SIEV Seminar“The influence of the PapalEncyclical Laudato Sì on theevaluation paths: the urbanareas between conflict andsolidarity, degradation andregeneration, exclusion andparticipation”, held in Rome(Italy) in April 2016. Starting from the PapalEncyclical “Laudato Sì”(published the 18 of June2015), the overall aim of thevolume is to encourage a reflection on the issues of urbanregeneration, land protection and enhancement of theterritories. In fact, the aforementioned Papal Encyclicaloffers the perfect opportunity to debate around social andenvironmental issues focussing on the urban suburbs, thedegraded city centres, the environmental damage and thehuman ecology. Moreover, the Papal Encyclical solicits for agreater consciousness about the subjects characterizing thecurrent developments of the evaluations discipline.In particular, the volume questions about the role of theevaluation methodologies in the current ecologic crisisfacing fundamental topics for the scientific communitysince, as state by Professor Enrico Fattinnanzi in the preface“the more decisions move from traditional individualinterests to the common ones, the more the evaluationcontent moves from market assessment to collective/socialevaluations”. In order to properly analyse the city as a common good, thevolume brings together different point of view provided byexperts with heterogeneous backgrounds and professionalpositions, as: economists, evaluators, academics, architects,planners, sociologists, energy companies, ONG,government and public administration representatives.After the Preface, devoted to frame the ecologic problemstated by the Papal Encyclical, the first two introductorychapters highlight the key issues as the role of theintegrated evaluation in urban distressed areas with aparticular focus on the intergenerational equity. The volumeis then organized into four parts reflecting the macro-themes suggested by the Papal Encyclical. The first part,called “Human ecology: Values and paradigms”, consists of11 contributions. They face the urban ecologic problemfrom the ethic perspective investigating the social andeconomic responsibility of planners and designers in thesocial regeneration.The second part is composed by 13 contributions under thesub-title “Integral Ecology and natural resourcesmanagement”. The aforementioned contributions highlight the need forintegrated assessment techniques able to contain andmeasure theurban vulnerability. The 12 contributions of the third part, “Intergenerationalequity”, analyze the ecologic problem with a particular focuson the climate change adaptation of the cities and stressingthe importance of the regeneration mechanisms supportedby financial, social and multicriteria methodologies. The fourth part, called “How to enhance dialogue andtransparences into Decision Making Processes”, iscomposed by 11 contributions that highlight the need forparticipative processes able to involve the stakeholders in aperspective of social equity to participate to the citygovernment. Given the breadth and the complexity of the ecologicproblem, the contributions selected and the operationalstructure chosen by the editors allow the volume to beorganic and scientifically soun