Abstract:Landscape is a crucial component of world heritage and, in the last few years, landscape projects have played a vital role in the development of sustainable scenarios. As reported in the European Landscape Convention, landscape means an area, as perceived by people, of which the character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors. Therefore, in landscape planning and assessment, the community is necessarily involved. In order to improve the effectiveness of a project for landscape enhancement, this study suggests strategies for an integrated project, taking into account the numerous, heterogeneous variables involved. A landscape project, therefore, is a complex project that requires structured valuation stages, open to the community dimension. The qualitative, intergenerational, and inclusive characteristics of landscapes suggest that the limits of traditional economic analysis should be exceeded by adopting new assessment methods. With this aim in mind, this paper proposes social evaluation approaches, which operate by combining deliberative processes with total economic and multidimensional approaches. In this paper, we present: (1) a brief overview of the main features and issues concerning landscape projects; (2) strategies for integrated projects in landscape enhancement; and (3) social approaches in landscape assessment that account for complexity and social inclusion. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2014, 6 7907

Abstract:In the major U.S. and European cities (e.g., Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco, London, Paris, etc.) that since 2007 have been feeling the effects of the international economic crisis, regeneration processes have been set up thanks, among other things, to the synergic impact generated by urban agriculture (UA). There are numerous and greatly varied effects, linked to localization, that are consistent with the paradigm of sustainable development, although the sporadic, spontaneous, and discontinued nature of UA conditions its capacity to strongly influence an entire community. With a view to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of urban agriculture, and to facilitating its planning, this study puts forward the implementation of an organized and multifunctional agro-urban system. The consent of the population involved is vital for the creation and implementation of the system, therefore ascertaining not only the existence but also the level of social appreciation of this resource is of paramount importance. With the aim of providing a suitable methodology for ascertaining the social appreciation of the stakeholders in the agro-urban system, the paper puts forward a deliberative monetary appraisal that combines an economic valuation based on hypothetic scenarios with direct, inclusive, and dialogic approaches. In this paper we present: (1) a general overview of the main characteristics of urban agriculture and related problems; (2) the principal methodological elements for defining and OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2014, 6 9008 planning an agro-urban system; and (3) guidelines for a deliberative appraisal procedure related to an agro-urban system.

The growth of global urban population produces an increase in food demand. With the aim of facing this demand, mainly\ud concentrated in large urban areas, urban agriculture should be fostered to integrate traditional agriculture production, no longer\ud considered sustainable. After suggesting the implementation of integrated systems of urban agriculture, in order to measure their social appreciation expressed by the community, the paper proposes the Community Esteem Value, obtained with a deliberative\ud appraisal procedure

As in the most developed contexts the ratio between qualitative and quantitative needs tends to increase progressively, also the sector of architectural design is urged to introduce suitable quality goals in its ideation processes. The assessment of the quality of an architectural design is justified by the advisability to check the results of its solutions with reference to the needs expressed by the point of view of the community, general, impartial and binding. The paper proposes an assessment model based on requirements and aimed at verifying the correspondence of the architectural design to a set of performance, based on multicriteria schemes.

Many regions of the world are facing the issue of regeneration of large brownfield sites characterized by environmental, social and economic degradation. In order to contribute to the development of innovative regional regeneration models, the paper introduces the successful European strategic project of the Ruhr basin. The irreversible crisis of mining and steel industry sectors, started in 1960 in that area, had brought, within a period of twenty years, to a profound social, economic, environmental decline. Project Emscher Landschaftpark was born in 1989 with the general objective of radically modifying the structure, image and functions that, until then, had characterized the territory of the Ruhr; it was related to a vast area, aimed at a sustainable, long term development and was based on the idea of considering the activities of the Emscher Park as an engine for the economy of the Region. The paper, after describing briefly the characteristics of the project, aims to highlight the main elements that contributed to its implementation.