Smart City e rigenerazione urbana

The complex issues concerning the citizens' quality of life in urban centers and in the surrounding suburbs imply shared strategies and an overall view aimed at a forward-looking planning, concerning, for instance, land consumption, safety, mobility, sustainability, environmental and cultural heritage protection. It is in this perspective that the policies of "urban regeneration" are developed. They include initiatives able to influence not only the urban fabric, but also the socio-environmental context of the area concerned. They are therefore not limited to a mere "redevelopment" (construction industry) of the city, but to the establishment a process of transformation overcoming pre-existing conditions of degradation and enabling the rediscovery of social values and urban quality of life. In this sense, it becomes fundamental citizens' participation to urban life via new technologies, in order to create a virtual agora, so as to introduce forms of "planning and administrative activities based on consensus", while respecting the fundamental principles of representative democracy. This, however, does not diminish the belief that next-generation technological tools should always serve only the real needs and interests of the community leaving the individual and the political community free from any dependence (first and foremost, cultural) on them