383 research outputs found
Market Values and Socioeconomic Mixité in Palermo. The Role of Migrants in the Commercial Real Estate Market
No full textSocioeconomic and functional mixité has been an objective placed at the basis of urban development to guide the transformation processes of urban areas, associating it with social inclusion as opposed to the morphological and spatial segregation, often caused by monofunctional zoning. The implementation of social mixité involves all social groups and, particularly, migrant communities that, in turn, are formed by groups with different cultures, nationalities, resources and income levels. The location choices of migrants and native residents produce an ever-changing urban geography of residential, commercial and service activities that directly impact on the real estate market. Migrants’ active participation in the urban mixité reaches its highest degree of social visibility in their use of commercial properties located on main streets, where they compete and/or cooperate with native-operated businesses. This study investigated the use of commercial properties in three main streets of Palermo during 2018-2020 to analyze the evolution of functional and socioeconomic mixité. The findings show what capacity migrant communities have to permeate the urban fabric with their commercial activities and to participate in the local real estate market currently characterized by high vacancy rates
Energy Communities in Urban Areas: Comparison of Energy Strategy and Economic Feasibility in Italy and Spain
No full textEnergy communities using renewable energy sources directly contributes to reduction of climate-change gas emissions and energy consumption in the European Union. In addition, energy communities enable citizens to transform from (passive) consumers to prosumers (active consumers and producers) and to play a proactive role in the deployment of energy transition in urban areas. As the transposition of European rules about energy communities into the national laws of EU Member States is very articulated and differentiated, this study proposes a framework to analyze and compare regulatory and financial instruments. This framework is applied to the analysis of the case of Italy and Spain, as representative of European states in which collective actions in the energy sector are not very common, with the aim of highlighting the main critical issues affecting the effectiveness of energy transition strategies and assessing the economic feasibility for energy communities. Analyzing regulations and procedures, including at the local level, it appears that municipalities play an important role as promoters of initiatives among citizen communities, while complex bureaucratic procedure is the most critical issue in both countries and can significantly hinder the spread of energy communities. With respect to the different financial incentives available for the formation of energy communities in Italy and Spain, a few cases studies are hypothesized, calculating the most relevant cost-effectiveness indicators, e.g. Net Present Value. It turns out that a project with the same characteristics achieves greater economic feasibility in Italy than in Spain, depending on the type and size of incentives set by national laws, and, above all, that financial incentives are necessary to make the formation of energy communities cost-effective and thus to achieve direct citizen involvement in energy transition actions
Towards a participatory energy transition. Critical issues and potentials of regulatory and financial instruments for Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) in Italy [Verso una transizione energetica partecipativa. Criticità e potenzialità degli strumenti normativi e finanziari per le Comunità Energetiche Rinnovabili (CER) in Italia]
No full textThe energy transition towards an economic model based on energy from renewable sources is considered a priority of strategic importance for the development of the European Union and Italy. In this context, Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) represent an opportunity to accelerate the decarbonisation process, to increase energy self-consumption and to replace centralised and hierarchical power plants with distributed and collaborative ones. This study aims to analyse how decarbonisation objectives are incorporated into national and regional regulatory and financial instruments that support the establishment of RECs. Starting from the comparison between the characteristics of REC and those of other energy community models with respect to a plurality of spheres (specifically, environmental, legal, economic-financial, technical, social and administrative spheres), the study provides a systematised framework of the advantages/disadvantages that influence the decision to invest in setting up a REC, and identifies the main critical issues that must be differentially addressed by the promoters, depending on whether they are public or private actors, assessing them through a system of nomenclators obtained following a focus group of experts. Furthermore, the analysis of regulations and available data on active RECs showed that Local Administrations play a central role in the dissemination of RECs, but also that the implementation of a sustainable and inclusive energy transition in the territories is hindered by a low level of social participation due to lack of knowledge of the benefits provided by RECs as well as actual difficulties for citizens to access REC projects, especially in their role as promoters
I barbari alle porte. Il complesso dell’assedio nell’immaginario popolare contemporaneo
No full textIl saggio mira a illuminare alcune dinamiche dell'opposizione civiltà/barbarie nell'immaginario contemporaneo, attraverso l'analisi della trasposizione allegorica della figura del barbaro in una serie di creature ricorrenti nell'immaginario di massa (zombie, alieni, mutanti, orchi
Introduction a "Iraq After 2003: When Trauma Becomes Art. Myth, History, and Literature"
No full textThe article aims at introducing the volume "Iraq After 2003: When Trauma Becomes Art. Myth, History, and Literature", edited By Ada Barbaro. The volume aims to provide lenses that examine, from various angles, a country, Iraq, in the aftermath of the quintessential trauma of its contemporary history, namely, 2003.The volume is thus a collection of "narratives", of
narrative acts that render the relationship between reality and its discourse almost oxymoronic. The present work, born in the wake of the conference «Iraq After 2003: When Trauma Becomes Art. Myth, History, and Literature», is therefore published as an outcome of the scientific project "Forms, Languages, and [Con]texts of Tàrìkh: Writing and Rewriting History in Iraq", of which the author of these pages is the Principal Investigator
Social Housing and Affordable Rent: The Effectiveness of Legal Thresholds of Rents in Two Italian Metropolitan Cities
No full textSocial housing is an instrument of housing policies to support those groups of people who are disadvantaged due to particular economic weaknesses and/or social relational fragility. Consequently, to achieve the objective of social sustainability, the rents of social housing must be below the market rents and low enough to be affordable. Italian law has set several rent thresholds which are based on local territorial agreements between landlords and renters associations. This article aims to examine whether these thresholds generate social fairness and housing affordability within each city and between different cities, or instead inequalities and spatial asymmetries. A cluster analysis is applied to study whether the goal of fairness is achieved, while the effectiveness of providing housing affordability is assessed by comparing the benchmarked rents with those of the national ministerial Real Estate Market Observatory. Two metropolitan cities—one in the north and another in the south of Italy—with different social and economic characteristics were chosen as case studies. The results show that variations in rents, location, and housing quality are fairly consistent within urban areas and cities. However, the benchmarked rents are not consistently related to the market rents and are often higher than the latter, failing to meet the provision of affordable housing that was the primary goal of the law
Preface
No full textThe encounter between Appraisal and Valuation and other social sciences, such as Geography and Urban Planning, but also Philosophy and Psychology, can be considered as a valuable opportunity to combine approaches expressing different points of view on the same phenomena. The interpretative paradigms and opera-tional tools of Appraisal and Valuation are therefore questioned and should be re-vised to be adopted in the appraisal practice or to support decision-making pro-cesses related to real estate market and urban, territorial and environmental plan-ning, according to a perspective of social inclusion and multiculturalism
L'efficacia degli incentivi negli interventi di retrofit energetico di edifici pubblici. Il caso delle Regioni italiane dell'"Obiettivo Convergenza" = The efficiency of the incentives for the public buildings energy retrofit. The case of the Italian regions of the "objective convergence"
No full textThe objective of energy use and emissions reductions, enunciated in many European Directives, has emphasized the need to promote the improvement of energy efficiency of existing buildings. Local administrations, in particular, should submit their own buildings to energy retrofit, not only to respect the Directives, but also to make those buildings an example of an active environmental culture and to induce similar improvement in private buildings, on the basis of financial appraisal of feasibility, which can be facilitated by incentives. The "Unione Province di Italia" (UPI) in 2013, within the POI Energy (Interregional Operative Program), requested energy audits and projects of the energy retrofit for 150 public buildings located in the 4 Italian Regions of the "Objective Convergence" (Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily). In this study, a methodological proposal is elaborated, including a Cash Flow Analysis and an analysis of risk and uncertainty through the Monte Carlo method, to appraise the cost-effectiveness of retrofit actions in public buildings. The methodology is applied to a sample of 36 actions and it allows getting some economic-financial indicators (Net Present Value NPV and Payback Period) able to support the public decision process for selecting the best alternatives to be realized. The evaluation model is direct to search those conditions that assure the profitability and to know how much the currently available incentives are a practical financial tool (not-refundable incentives of the Conto Termico 2.0, DM 16/02/2016). The financial analysis is integrated with a risk analysis, which evaluates the sensibility of the results to the inputs of the model. The results of the study show that: a category of actions never get the financial profitability; some actions have a positive NPV but a quite long Payback Period (higher than 15 years) only with the adequate incentives; finally, a category of actions has a positive NPV and short Payback Period (lower than 16 years) and are even profitable under low favorable market conditions. This last category could be particularly attractive for the Public Administration that intends to make actions that reach energy saving and economic-financial profitability
Migrants, Retail Properties and Historic Centre. Urban and Economic Resilience in Palermo (Italy)
No full textMigratory flows arriving in the countries of the European Union over the recent years have generated significant urban, social and economic transfor- mations, especially in metropolitan areas. Although with different intensity, the increase of new cultures and ethnic groups living in Italy has led to changes in both social value system and urban economic dynamism, generating consequences also on the real estate market. In order to analyze urban dynamics linked to migration flows, this study focuses on the retail properties used for inner-city shops owned/managed by immigrants. In particular, the city of Palermo (Italy) is chosen as a case study due to its multicultural stratification that is particularly complex in the historic centre. This study highlights also the resilience of foreign business activities after the Covid-19 pandemic emergency and their contribution to the production of social wealth
Daniele Barbaro and the Foundation of the Botanical Garden for the University of Padua
No full textWhen in the Renaissance the Venetian authorities decided to establish the Botanical Garden at the University of Padua in order to carry out experimental studies directly on plants, they entrusted Daniele Barbaro with the role of administrative supervisor. This essay, by comparing the Garden as built with documentary information and historical records, advances the hypothesis of a role not exclusively focused on economic aspects but also on considerations of design. Although information is scarce, the author reasonably speculates that Daniele Barbaro, probably assisted by other scholars and botanical experts, may have conceived the Hortus Sphaericus of Padua, an original design that was never completed
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