Reimagining urbanism requires a rigorous exercise of will, responsibilities and competencies that are based on a system of urban governance based on new development pentagram: vision, strategy, design, rules and community. A different thought and an innovative chain of actions for the new times, able to reimagine the urban project. Cities of the future - smart, creative and green - must act within a state of perturbation that will not disappear soon. They will reactivate their capital guided by a planning can ensure the convergence of new forms of cultural, economic, environmental and social sustainability through the adoption of new visions of the future, either through the use of new paradigms but also through the quality of decisions and the performances of projects. [coming soon]

.........................................................................................................................

Within the Framework of Horizon 2020, the Research Unit of Palermo approaches the key theme of RECYCLE applying it to the regeneration of urban and suburban settlements assigning new life cycles to urban complex, human settlements and infrastructure networks, disused, chancing or with shrinking functions. The Shrinking City produces several urban "fragments", functional "chips" and "scrap" of development that, through a recycling process/project, can be brought back into urban infrastructures for new cycles of life. These urban materials can be recycled to produce a new “urban software” proceeding from rewriting and recombination of still efficient "lines of code" (functions, resources, tissues and architectures): the RE-loaded CITY. [open]

.........................................................................................................................

The project "Waterfront", (Water and Territorial policiEs for integrRation oF multisectoRial develOpmeNT), aims to define guidelines, strategies and operational tools for planning of urban and suburban coasts, based on cross-border exchange of experiences Malta-Sicily. The project Waterfront will enhance the conditions of environment for the transformation and development of the coastal tracts of the provinces of Trapani and Palermo and those of Malta improving techniques about territorial planning and through the exchange of experiences and the dissemination of good practice among the partners involved. [open]

.........................................................................................................................

The most recent planning proposals of the Municipality of Palermo are powered by a metropolitan vision capable of leading the formation of productive and innovative urban clusters, the set up of territorial platforms, the re-centralisation of urban areas through the redevelopment of the nodes and the provision of public services, but also by redefining high-ranking metropolitan functions able to enhance the role of "Gateway City", acting as a "transformer" of the flow of resources, tangible and intangible, that cross their land. In such a strategic scenario, integrated and oriented to urban regeneration, acts the "Progetto di Territorio Snodo" drawn up by the city of Palermo, with the technical assistance of PricewaterhouseCoopers and the involvement of the municipalities of Termini Imerese and Trapani and the provinces of Palermo and Trapani. [open]

.........................................................................................................................

When a complex system does not work and does not reach the desired results, when its performances are low, when the relations between the parties are congested, when it consumes resources and dissipates energies, when emergency interventions are not effective, but despite all the qualities and the potential values are still intact, then you need to "reload the operating system."
Palermo Reloaded is the key word that characterizes my experience as a Councilor for the strategic plan and for the urban regeneration of the old town and the title of my next book emerged from this experience. The book collects ideas, experiments and directions to reactivate the metabolism of the city and to improve the regeneration process, quality and competitiveness. [open]
..........................................................................................................................

The Strategic Plan for Palermo (approved in June 2011 by the Sicilian Region) proposes a process capable of acting over the city by identifying the necessary strategies (local and wide), activating its urban policies, drawing up working plans for upgrading, developing and identifying the resulting rules to facilitate the implementation of strategies and projects, in the certainty of decisions, time and more effective procedures. The innovation of the planning process, decision-making and implementation for the purpose of pursuing the integration of regeneration projects in some areas, making the city more creative, competitive and cohesive and stimulating the interest of private partnership working in the urban governance with the Municipal Administration to the implementation and management of projects able to upgrade, to transform and to improve the efficiency and performance of community services and urban welfare. [open]
..........................................................................................................................

Reflections on urban creativity and experimentation as a competitive factor developed in recent years, starting with the works of Florida and Landry, resulted in further theoretical and practical considerations aimed at providing greater local and regional dimension to the creative city, leaving the rhetorical character and increasing that of the concrete effects on the quality of life. In 2007 my book "Creative City. Dynamics Innovations Actions" has identified the need for a further evolution of the concept by identifying the factors that allow the creativity to become a generator of new urban economies and creator of the new city and not simply attractive for intellectual resources. Today we need a further evolutionary step towards the creative city 3.0 so that it can continue to produce a multiplier effect on urban development and regeneration. [open]
..........................................................................................................................

The evolution of cities is manifested through a settlement system in the direction of an increasingly complexity, an interaction between functions of various kinds and rank, the production of collective intelligence and the intersection of global and local flows: the collective nature of the city fights against the monofunctionality, against the land use as a paradigm and strength of identity. In the liquid society, the city strictly divided by parts and functions must be replaced by the "multiple city", not only multifunctional inside, but also node complex planetary network of cities where many are intertwined local and global networks. But the risk is that the outcome is a loss of identity to run up to the perennial external models. The emergence of diversity must be an increase of responsibility, which translates into a three-fold commitment: to the environment, to the identity and toward cooperation. [open]
..........................................................................................................................

The effects of the earthquake of the global economic crisis have revealed the need for a way to develop re-founded on ethics, responsibility and cooperation. The Great Illusion collapsed and buried the myth of consumerism, so we can rediscover the value of living in a society driven by knowledge, driven by the responsibility and where the decisions are based on courage.
The theme of courage to make decisions not only in ethical terms is proposed here based on my experience of public administrator to the City of Palermo, with responsibilities that require the courage to accompany the diagnosis and the ability to select actions. [open]
..........................................................................................................................

[open]
..........................................................................................................................