Adaptive Reuse and Sustainability Protocols in Italy: Relationship with Circular Economy

This paper explores the enhancement of adaptive reuse (AR) of buildings through the lens of the sustainability protocols within the context of circular economy (CE) in Italy. Cities and the built environment can play a key role in the transition to a CE, especially considering the documented negative global impact due to resource consumption and waste generation. This is recognised among the principles of circularity defined by the European Commission towards a general strategy for a sustainable built environment, which encourages initiatives of building reuse and land consumption reduction. It has been proven that the AR of vacant buildings can bring environmental, social, and economic benefits towards an urban strategy based on CE principles by generating useful values to support innovative development dynamics. In this perspective, the sustainability protocols can be identified as useful tools to pursue strategies for spreading the culture of sustainable build environment. Considering the huge vacant Italian architectural heritage, this paper aims to analyze how the most widely used sustainability protocols in the Italian context currently address the enhancement of the reuse of buildings, to improve environmental, social, and economic quality in the built environment. We discuss the results highlighting how and which sustainability protocols better intercept these issues, providing grounds for future development.

The Changing landscapes of Ankara

This article offers a critical reading of the changing landscapes of Ankara, exposing the still existing potential for framing integrative urban strategy-making. Ankara has undergone intense urban expansion since the 1950s, and like other cities, it is still dealing with large scale construction/destruction engendering dramatic landscape loss in various contexts and scales. Although change in the landscape is typical of urbanization, nature and landscape were largely undervalued in the implementation of urban development strategies in Ankara. Contradicting per capita green space policies, the well-structured urban landscape, including both natural and planned/designed landscapes from the Republican Period were fragmented and reduced. Valleys creating corridors for fresh air and offering a reserve for agriculture were engulfed by squatter houses, then by new housing projects; streams, defining a blue infrastructure accompanied by fertile lands were partially covered over or canalized. Furthermore, the landscape heritage of the early Republican Period, which played a key role in the modernization of societal and urban life, was also undervalued, while the urban park system has been diminished. This article identifies representative examples of fragmentation and loss of the landscape fabric, as well as the latent potential of the landscape to articulate a sustainability agenda for Ankara

The Changing Landscapes of Ankara: A Critical Ground for Integrative Urban and Landscape Development

This article offers a critical reading of the changing landscapes of Ankara, exposing the still existing potential for framing integrative urban strategy-making. Ankara has undergone intense urban expansion since the 1950s, and like other cities, it is still dealing with large scale construction/destruction engendering dramatic landscape loss in various contexts and scales. Although change in the landscape is typical of urbanization, nature and landscape were largely undervalued in the implementation of urban development strategies in Ankara. Contradicting per capita green space policies, the well-structured urban landscape, including both natural and planned/designed landscapes from the Republican Period were fragmented and reduced. Valleys creating corridors for fresh air and offering a reserve for agriculture were engulfed by squatter houses, then by new housing projects; streams, defining a blue infrastructure accompanied by fertile lands were partially covered over or canalized. Furthermore, the landscape heritage of the early Republican Period, which played a key role in the modernization of societal and urban life, was also undervalued, while the urban park system has been diminished. This article identifies representative examples of fragmentation and loss of the landscape fabric, as well as the latent potential of the landscape to articulate a sustainability agenda for Ankara

Social Perception and Urbanscape Identity of Flagship Cultural Developments in Szczecin (in the Re-Urbanization Context)

A growing number of urban interventions, such as culture-led regeneration strategies, has emerged alongside growing awareness of the concept of re-urbanization. These interventions evolve to create a holistic urban vision, with aims to promote social cohesion and strengthen local identity as opposed to traditional goals of measuring the economic impact of new cultural developments. Szczecin’s, Poland urban strategy is focused on the expansion of culture—a condition for improving the quality of life and increasing the city’s attractiveness. This article assesses the potential for re-urbanization of Szczecin’s flagship cultural developments. Questionnaire surveys and qualitative research methods were used to assess the characteristics that distinguish cultural projects in the formal, location-related, functional, and symbolic layers, as well as examining their social perception. The results show that the strength of these indicators of urbanscape identity affects how the cultural developments are assessed by the society. Semiotic coherence and functional complexity of the structures have a significant impact on the sense of identification, while their monumentality and exposure contribute to the assessment of the impact on their surroundings. A development with a firm identity, embedded in the city’s tradition not only preserves the cultural heritage of the city but also makes inhabitants feel association with the new project.

Placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms

This article introduces the special issue on placing LGBTQ+ urban activisms. It argues that place provides a vital framework for considering a more decentred and transversal representation of such activisms, creating potential for the consideration of smaller and more peripheral locations and alternative visions of the more familiar and iconic cities that have been centres of LGBTQ+ urban social movements in the global North. While inspired by the anti-colonial, subaltern and feminist ethos of what Derickson terms ‘Urbanisation 2’, the article makes the case for adopting a middle ground – Urbanisation 1.5 – based in material realities that shape both the practice and inquiry into contemporary LGBTQ+ urban activisms. It begins by reviewing and dismantling established histories and theories of LGBTQ+ urban activisms, queerly calling into question the employment of urban theories that emphasise spatial hierarchies and linear temporality. Next, the article proposes alternatives, suggesting a shift towards recognising the contingencies and multiplicities that come together in and across urban places. The third section emphasises the critical continuities and ordinary entanglements involved in remembering, being and doing urban LGBTQ+ activisms in place. It concludes by encouraging the employment of elsewhere and otherwise as a critical urban strategy for igniting further inquiry into the politics of LGBTQ+ activisms in urban studies.

Community Garden Initiatives Addressing Health and Well-Being Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Infodemiology Aspects, Outcomes, and Target Populations

Previous research has suggested that activities such as community gardens could offer a wide range of health benefits. The aim of the article is to systematically review the available literature to analyse the magnitude of the phenomenon, the geographical distribution, and the main characteristics in terms of health outcomes and target populations. The search addresses the question whether the activity in community gardens improves health and well-being outcomes of individuals. From the total amount of 7226, 84 selected articles showed that:(1) up to 50% are published by U.S. universities or institutions; (2) up to 44% of the studies considered “community gardens” as the main activity of the research focus; (3) one-third of the studies included adults; (4) almost 25% of the studies used “general health” as the main outcome when investigating the benefits of community gardens; (5) the percentage of studies that achieved their outcomes was heterogeneous among the different health dimensions. In conclusion, while a certain degree of heterogeneity in the used definition and outcome still exist, community gardens may be a viable strategy for well-being promotion in terms of psychological, social, and physical health and may be considered as an innovative urban strategy to promote urban public health.

Exploring the long-term effect of strategy work: The case of Sustainable Sydney 2030

Strategy has become an important concern and practical tool in urban management and governance, with the literature highlighting implementation as a hallmark of effective strategy. Whilst such a strategy–action link (which we label here as ‘implementation nexus’) has been well established, other long-term effects have been documented in less detail. Our study of Sustainable Sydney 2030 finds that strategy was effective to the extent to which it changed the institutional a priori of what a collective of actors engaged in city-making knows, what it can articulate and how its members relate to each other. We capture this effect as ‘institution nexus’ and theorise our findings with Ludwik Fleck’s concept of ‘thought style’ of a focal ‘thought collective’– notions that also centrally influenced Mary Douglas’ work on ‘how institutions think’. We contribute to extant research by adding the institution nexus as a long-term effect of urban strategy as well as by advancing strategy theory in urban studies to foreground its ability to shape institutions.

Transnational gentrification: The crossroads of transnational mobility and urban research

This introduction to the special issue introduces the contributors’ articles and identifies key themes relating to how increased transnational mobility has affected urbanisation processes in many cities, resulting in the globalisation of rent gaps. A mix of local and transnational real estate interests work to attract higher-income lifestyle migrants and tourists, often from higher-income countries to lower-income urban space in order to increase its exchange value. In the process, however, they act to reduce the use value of urban space to lower-income residents. The introduction notes that the acceleration of lifestyle mobilities moving through urban spaces, and the development of transnational lifestyles of urban place consumption, have produced new forms of gentrification – not merely the spread of an urban strategy to new cities, but the planetarisation of rent gaps. Transnational gentrification is the form of contemporary urbanisation that occurs as a result of closing these rent gaps through attraction of higher income, transnational migrants, often from high-income countries in Northern Europe and North America.