Enzo Falco

• PhD, Urban Planning
• Assistant Professor at University of Trento

Ever since the earthquake of April 6, 2009 hit the city of L'Aquila, Italy, the city has been facing major challenges in terms of social, physical, and economic reconstruction. The system of public urban mobility, the bus network, is no exception with its old bus fleet, non-user-friendly information, and poor scheduling. This paper argues that the...

Citizen participation in planning as a decision-making and future-oriented activity is still in the hands of government. New advances in Information Communication Technologies and community informatics have allowed new forms of e-participation and e-planning to emerge. The article refers to theories of social psychology and digital rationality to s...

Italian coastal areas have been subject to strong anthropogenic pressure and urbanization processes over the past 60 years. Urbanization of the protected 300-m strip from shoreline has reached levels of over fifty per cent in some parts of the country. This article, by building on previous quantitative analyses and by providing some more quantitati...

Italian literature on plan-making has been unable to explain why updated regional legislation and new-style master plans have not always speeded up the plan-making process. Indeed, using data from Tuscany, at both regional and provincial levels, confirms that the speeding up has not been generally achieved. This paper offers an interpretation that...

Everything that happens on the ground, every spatial intervention, has an impact on land and its value. It follows that the ability of governments to regulate the matter in its relations with private developers and landowners is of extreme importance for the civil society as a whole. Nowadays, in consideration of the fact that municipalities are sh...

Urban densification threatens vacant lots in cities, potentially affecting biodiversity and the ecosystem services (ES) they provide. Policymakers require evidence-based tools to balance densification policies and initiatives with the preservation of green spaces. This research proposes a method to assess ecosystem conditions (EC) of vacant lots an...

Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) programs have been used in Italy over the last two decades for various purposes, e.g. to avoid expropriation. While previous research shows that implementing TDR programs at a regional level creates considerable transaction costs, there is no study concerning the costs generated by employing these programs at a...

Consideration of the future fate of brownfields in urban environments has driven a complex ‘season’ of decisions, planning, and implementation that has seen the emergence of different approaches and actions for their reuse. Among the various experiences of brownfield redevelopment, some projects have also promoted the partial renaturalisation of ar...

In recent years, transfer of development rights (TDR) programs have become widespread as a mechanism for implementing urban transformations and achieving planning goals. As market-based instruments, they facilitate land acquisition whilst avoiding compulsory purchases and minimizing public spending. By promoting urban transformation, TDR programs a...

L'adozione dei meccanismi di trasferimento dei diritti edi?catori nel territorio lombardo ha portato i comuni al loro recepimento nella strumentazione urbanistica per garantire l'equo trattamento dei proprietari e assicurare la dotazione di aree per servizi e attrezzature pubbliche. In alcune amministrazioni comunali, l'adattamento di questi meccan...

This paper analyses the occurrence of governance innovations for forest ecosystem service (FES) provision in the forestry sector in Europe and the factors that influence innovation development. Based on a European-wide online survey, public and private forest owners and managers representing different property sizes indicate what type of governance...

This Special Issue, titled “GIS for Spatial/Political Participation in the Decision-Making Processes of Local Administrations”, in the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information is aimed at analysing state-of-the-art geoparticipatory tools for citizen participation in community decision-making processes, and suggesting the effective implementat...

The aim of this chapter is to present and test a performance-based planning approach based on the information produced by ecosystem services (ES) mapping and assessment at the urban scale. The city of Trento in Italy is used as a case study. The planning approach allows to estimate the impacts of proposed urban transformations and to define for the...

Forests are increasingly recognized for their role, importance and multifunctionality in terms of provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services they provide. Even if timber production remains the most economically valuable provisioning service in Primiero, the importance of and need for multifunctionality of forests is acknowledged. This...

Web-based participatory mapping technologies are being increasingly harnessed by local governments to crowdsource local knowledge and engage the public in urban planning policies as a means of increasing the transparency and legitimacy of planning processes and decisions. We refer to these technologies as “geoparticipation”. Current innovations are...

Contemporary urban development is increasingly characterized by collaboration and co-production between ‘experts’ and the ‘public’ in urban planning processes. Recently, local planning actors have adopted digital participatory platforms (DPPs) which are specifically built for networked engagement and collaboration purposes. However, the knowledge o...

Italy’s story of coastal law and regulation refects the country’s challenges of governance and the differences across regions (sub-national authorities) in capacity to meet these challenges. The country’s sunny coastal land is a magnet not only for second homes and tourists but also for illegal development. Italy also faces signifcant issues of ins...

This article investigates how training public officials from two municipalities in Spain and Cyprus with new technologies affects three dependent variables: level of understanding of the technological innovation being introduced, its perceived usefulness, and its perceived ease-of-use. The tests to determine the impact of training were carried out...

The English system of developer contributions, planning obligations, remained unchanged between 1990 and 2010 and attracted major criticisms of causing slow, opaque, unaccountable planning processes. In 2010, the Community Infrastructure Levy was introduced to reform planning obligations and deliver a faster, more transparent, certain and accountab...

This article explores the potential of web-based participatory mapping tools for urban planning purposes and spatial information creation in informal settlements, i.e. the slums (barrios) of Caracas, Venezuela. While an increasing use of mapping tools is found in developed countries, fewer applications are found in informal settlements of developin...

Il trasferimento dei diritti edificatori in Italia è stato oggetto di un acceso dibattito da parte della comunità accademica nostrana–pezzi rilevanti del quale sono stati ospitati su questa stessa rivista (Camagni, 2014; Chiodelli, 2013, 2016; Colavitti, Serra, 2016; Galuzzi, 2014; Gibelli, 2014; Goggi, 2014; Micelli, 2014, 2016; Moroni, 2012, 2014...

Citizen participation in planning as a decision-making and future-oriented activity is still in the hands of government. New advances in Information Communication Technologies and community informatics have allowed new forms of e-participation and e-planning to emerge. The article refers to theories of social psychology and digital rationality to s...

A renewed interest has appeared in citizen co-production of public services due to financial pressure on governments. While social media are considered an important facilitator, many digital participatory platforms (DPPs) have been developed to facilitate co-production between citizens and governments in the context of urban development. Previous s...

Citizen participation in planning as a decision-making and future-oriented activity is still in the hands of government. New advances in Information Communication Technologies and community informatics have allowed new forms of e-participation and e-planning to emerge. The article refers to theories of social psychology and digital rationality to s...

Citizen participation in planning as a decision-making and future-oriented activity is still in the hands of government. New advances in Information Communication Technologies and community informatics have allowed new forms of e-participation and e-planning to emerge. The article refers to theories of social psychology and digital rationality to s...

The use of different kinds of social media by government has been steadily increasing over the last decade. National, regional and local governments often employ social media to communicate and interact with citizens, organizations and/or other government agencies. However, as many authors highlight, the use of social media by government has many c...

Despite great advances in ICT, social media, participatory platforms and mobile apps, we seem to still be locked in the one-way communication "paradigm" where information flows unilaterally from government to citizens and seldom vice-versa. As a result, citizens are more receivers rather than conscious producers of information, data, ideas, solutio...

This literature review has focused on smart governance as an emerging domain of study that attracts significant scientific and policy attention. More specifically, this paper aims to provide more insight in the definitions of and relationships between smart governance and concepts such as smart and electronic government, in the context of smart cit...

The paper deals with the transfer of development rights (TDR) in Italy. It presents a comparative analysis of the TDR programs implemented in the twelve capital cities of the Lombardy region in the past decade. After introducing the international debate on TDR and the distinctive features of the transfer of development rights in Italy, the essay an...

This policy brief provides practical recommendations for governments, especially at the local level, to overcome these challenges and make effective use of social media and other social networking sites for communication and collaboration purposes. The recommendations are based on a thorough review of relevant academic literature and interviews wit...

Previous research has highlighted that there is a lack of advanced technological solutions able to foster government- citizens collaboration. We argue that many examples of digital participatory platforms are already available and also ready to use for governments and citizens. Hence, causes for ineffective citizen engagement and collaboration with...

A renewed interest has appeared in citizen co-production of public services due to financial pressure on governments. While social media are considered an important facilitator, many digital participatory platforms (DPPs) have been developed to facilitate co-production between citizens and governments in the context of urban development. Previous s...

This book intends to establish itself as a reference in the field of land value recapture in the Italian context. It explores and reviews the trends and history of land value recapture in Italy over the last 150 years and highlights the challenges faced by different measures over time as well as their successful implementation. It also intends to...

The paper offers a historical review of planning and fiscal measures introduced in Italy regarding the question of betterment value. Every spatial intervention causes an impact on the land and on its value, and the ability of public authorities to regulate the matter becomes therefore important for both planning practice and civil society. By means...

This contribution aims to demonstrate how Fuzzy Cognitive Maps can be applied as decision support tools in Smart Cities. Simulation as a scientific method represents simplified processes and systems for decision making. Simulating real world scenarios of Smart Mobility on a computer-controlled environment – using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps - allows drawi...

Urban sustainability and its environmental dimension are an integral part of smart city projects. In this regard, the role of sustainability is widely analysed in the smart city context, in which the existence of different definitions often relates to the focus on a specific dimension, as economic, social and environmental. The environmental and go...

Questo lavoro, partendo dalla condivisione della necessità d’includere i cittadini all’interno dei processi di formazione delle scelte pubbliche, presenta l’uso di alcuni software open source per facilitarne l’inclusione. Il lavoro, dopo una discussione teorica dell’e-planning ed e-participation, presenta software di collaborative mapping e Public...

La rendita urbana può essere intesa come l’aumento di valore dei patrimoni immobiliari derivante dalle scelte pubbliche in materia di governo del territorio. È il caso del terreno agricolo posto ai margini della città consolidata, che a seguito di un intervento politico viene dichiarato edificabile. La differenza di valore tra il terreno agricolo o...

Data show the reduction of academic positions in Italy and invite to reconsider the role of PhD education and training as the highest level of university education. In fact, although PhDs seem to have a little advantage over Master’s level graduates in the job market, only about 10% find a job at universities. This suggests that changes in PhD prog...

Italian Abstract: Questo lavoro, partendo dalla condivisione della necessita d’includere i cittadini all'interno dei processi di formazione delle scelte pubbliche, cerca di presentare l'uso di alcuni software open source per facilitarne l’inclusione. Il lavoro, dopo una discussione teorica dell’e-planning ed e-participation e dei due approcci di co...

The English system of developers’ contributions towards community infrastructure and services remained unchanged for a 40 year period from 1968 to 2008. In 2008 a reform of paramount importance that introduced a new system of developers contributions was passed by the parliament. Thus, negotiated planning obligations were scaled back to include aff...

European cities and regions are facing the crucial challenge of greening their economy towards more sustainable patterns. Politicians and policy-makers should promote new policies for sustainable growth including renewables, greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and biodiversity. All of these aspects can be considered as a boost for local and...

The economic crisis has drained public funding to the bone. This applies to the planning sector as well as to the welfare state in general including health, education, social services and so on. The nonprofit sector and its myriad of organizations involved in planning, community organizing, services provision, citizens representation contribute a g...

The debate on the possibility of transfering the right to build, defined and intended as the development right, does not have a long tradition in Italy. In fact, it is only since the mid 1990s, when Perequazione (equalization) was introduced in practice, that there has been debate about transferability and example of implementation. At the moment,...

Italian planning seems to be underestimated outside Italy and the cause for this is unclear. There may be two possible explanations. On the one hand, it could be argued that Italian planning is ignored internationally as the consequence of a lack or of a small number of international articles about it published in international journals. On the oth...

Recent developments in Italian planning practice have brought about major innovations within the planning system. One of these major innovations concerns new development rights granting practices that are used by local planning authorities to secure community facilities and services, capture some betterment value and avoid using procedures of compu...

Over the last fifteen years and particularly from the early 2000s, relatively new planning gain procedures have been introduced within the Italian planning legislation and practice. Such instruments base their rationale upon the concept of developers' contribution for the provision of community facilities and services. This is justified by the lack...