Anagrafe della ricerca

The main focus is on the new tensions and challenges facing the European city in an era of fiscal austerity and increasing social demand, generating new forms of marginalisation, social and spatial polarization and territorial fragmentation In many European cities the economic processes (growth of home working, demographic changes and on-line shopping, concentration of retail in large outlets and factories in the outskirts), the financial and economic crisis and the neoliberal-turn in policies and the resulting restructuring and retreat of welfare states have created a “new wave” of urban vacant spaces. Urban regeneration and urban development projects were widely used in the past in order to deal with spatial and socio-economic inequalities, marginalisation and polarisation. Different forms of public-private partnerships have been commonly employed to address the need of urban development and to deliver necessary public services. In the current situation, the missing financial resources and the demand of new forms of urban revitalization lead to look for new approaches and tools. The main goal of the project is to identify new forms of action in the cities in order to tackle the challenge of new urban social tensions, re-activating eighborhoods/spaces and support the development of inclusive communities. To achieve this aim, the project will investigate examples of regeneration of urban voids that have been internationally acknowledged as successful, in order to identify the critical success factors. The study will seek to identify their potential for implementation in Turin (IT). An interdisciplinary approach will be used to explore how geographically-specific responses to vacancy may lead to either the continuation of the current financial model of urban development or to more socially progressive cities. The policy transfer to Turin will propose new approaches or tools to manage specific urban vacant spaces and implement a new policy of urban regeneration.