Dear Luca

Here are some short thoughts! I hope they can help.

Economic promotion, ecological attractiveness (recycling measures, greening measures and urban management, organic farming, direct marketing, competitions for self-initiative and awareness, ...)

Participation of the population in some decisions and social justice are units of success. Environmental protection and biodiversity are indicators of a good quality of life. Based on opinion polls and expert participation, the evaluation criteria can be set. Small pilot projects can be very helpful here.

Good strategic planning (short term, medium term and long term) is very compulsory).

All You Need People who are loyal and love the city!

Regards

Polla

Dear Polla,

I really think this is the right way.

By the way, I'll point out this article in Researchgate: Understanding the complementary links between environmental footprints and planetary boundaries in a footprint-boundary environmental sustainability assessment framework. I think that the field of urban planning is the territory in its entirety and in its integrity. By entirety I mean the geophysical characteristics, the ground coverings, the land uses for the organization of human activities between infrastructures and settlements; for integrity, the biosphere, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and last but not least, socio-economic cycles.

Bye, Luca

As you're talking about "sufficient" budget, I assume it would be in a developed country or in a pretty rich developing country.

I would suggest to found the research center in one of the poorest countries by spending half of the available budget. Hire local experts as well as those local brains who have left the country. Encourage them to return. Pay them well with the remaining budget. Let them find local problems and solve them while keeping them connected to the international scholars to collaborate in global sustainability projects.

Dear Aryan,

I have to make a premise: my thought is an abstract speech, because I have no funds and I am a retired professor, but the subject fascinates me from the theoretical point of view and from the need to make land use planning a scientific discipline the least possible deviated from particular interests. I appreciate what you say and I recognize its validity. I think of a network, with many researchers and research sites distributed throughout the world. It would be nice if someone believed it, as I understand it from the words of Polla and yours.

Regards, Luca

I will give part of the resources to the "regeneration activities in communities" since it is a priority in Iran.

Dear Saied,

I agree. The question of participation depends first and foremost on feeling part of a community, which is our being on Earth. This is a priority for all countries. Educating for the community and citizenship. What I would like to say - an idea expressed well in the film Visage-Village, but not only there, even in many urban communities - is learning to hear one's own story as a common story and success not as a victory over others but as the be at peace with others on Earth. Thank you

Luca

Dear Saied, I would like to add two or three reflections. 1) in Italy, urban renewal projects called "Contratti di quartiere (Neighborhood contracts)" were applied, linking the social objective to the renovation building. The idea was to build the project together and to help the population endure the inconvenience of renewal / regeneration. Always inhabiting the same place. Sometimes it was used badly, sometimes good. But now the funds that were used in the suburbs have been cut. 2) the city is a communicative context: the management of the existing city is part of a wider project of social identities and of the contamination of groups with different identities. Mixing identities is creating mutual respect. Citizenship education is a duty. 3)? ...

... Certainly there is a third question: all this is politics. Social identity means participatory planning and administration. That is: democracy? How do we decline democracy in post-post-modernity? Let's talk about? It is not enough. We need to reflect, discuss, and ... act! The slogan could be: abolish the suburbs, and save the integrity of society! A special greeting,

Luca

Dear all, if anyone is still reading my question,

I propose seven basic items:

(a) The field of interest of urban planning will be the territory in its wholeness and in its integrity. By wholeness I mean geophysical characteristics, land cover and land uses (natural resources and human activities, infrastructures and settlements); by integrity I mean biosphere, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem services, biodiversity and, last but certainly not of minor importance, socio-economic cycles. From this point of view the administrative boundaries of cities, metropolises are not real limits, but simple expressions of legal and politics 'necessities'.

(b) The urban planning approach must be scientific and based on its autonomy. The scientific context is constituted by the limits of the biosphere (from Meadows to Rees and Wackernagel and to the Stockholm Resilience Center).

The main goals are at least two: to make the measurable and verifiable analyzes and plans; identify the different types of impact and the resulting more effective mitigation and compensation works.

(c) Transparency, process verifiability, control of available technical and financial tools are necessary to control results and impacts in the short and long term. Laboratories need cooperation between disciplines (ecology, historical ecology, landscape ecology, archeology, landscape archeology, geomorphology, as examples) and transdisciplinarity.

The "before-during-after" environmental assessment techniques must have repeatability and verifiability.

(d) The field of research concerns with past to understand the future: to understand how much we can forecasts; to understand how much surprising will be our future.

(e) Simplification of the plan and its components (distributed geographical information systems, procedures and standards). Planning is a matter of democracy (the theory of justice and the right to the city).

(f) Educating citizenship and urban planning to make the participation of the population in the plan concrete.

(g) the availability of adequate independent laboratories means adequate human resources and economic resources capable of supporting an efficient network of all these laboratories.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Luca

I suggest you look at what has been created at Arizona State University's 'School of Sustainability' or the School of Ecology at University of California, Irvine.

Dear Richard, thanks for reporting the School of Sustainability. I started reading its programs and those of Arizona State University. I would like to see if they have research laboratories on the environmental impacts of urbanism and urbanization processes.

Thanks again,

Luca