The city-port context involves a decisive reality for the economic development of territories and nations, capable of significantly influencing the conditions of well-being and quality of life, and of making the Circular City Model (CCM) operational, preserving and enhancing seas and marine resources in a sustainable way. This can be achieved through the construction of appropriate production and consumption models, with attention to relations with the urban and territorial system. This paper presents an adaptive decision-making process for Naples (Italy) commercial port’s development strategies, aimed at re-establishing a sustainable city-port relationship and making Circular Economy (CE) principles operative. The approach has aimed at implementing a CCM by operationalizing European recommendations provided within both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework—specifically focusing on goals 9, 11 and 12—and the Maritime Spatial Planning European Directive 2014/89, to face conflicts about the overlapping areas of the city-port through multidimensional evaluations’ principles and tools. In this perspective, a four-step methodological framework has been structured applying a place-based approach with mixed evaluation methods, eliciting soft and hard knowledge domains, which have been expressed and assessed by a core set of Sustainability Indicators (SI), linked to SDGs. The contribution outcomes have been centred on the assessment of three design alternatives for the East Naples port and the development of a hybrid regeneration scenario consistent with CE and sustainability principles. The structured decision-making process has allowed us to test how an adaptive approach can expand the knowledge base underpinning policy design and decisions to achieve better outcomes and cultivate a broad civic and technical engagement, that can enhance the legitimacy and transparency of policies.

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Maritime transport technologies and infrastructures development fostering global economies since the second half of the 20th century, conditioning the reshaping of the territorial system in terms of social and spatial organisation, detaching port functions from urban ones and weakening their relationships. The reorganisation of the same activities, often within larger areas of the existing urban structure, has emphasised the so-called misalignment of the City-Port, given by dynamics having benefits at the regional scope and localised negative impacts. The European recommendations provided by both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework and the Maritime Spatial Planning European Directive 2014/89, within the theoretical and methodological framework provided by Circular City Model (CCM) approach, define the context to reconsider City-Port dynamics, leading to a regeneration of both the port and the city. To identify sustainable design strategies’ portfolio for Naples City-Port, in Italy, as pivotal action to trigger the regenerative process, the selection of a suitable set of indicators, within a multidimensional and multi-scale decision support system, has been developed. The study is part of the Italian research Project of Relevant National Interest (PRIN, 2015), “Metropolitan cities: territorial economic strategies, financial constraints, and circular regeneration”, coordinated by the Polytechnic of Milan, Italy.

The city-port involves a decisive reality for the economic development of the territories and nations, capable of significantly influencing the conditions of well-being and quality of life, and of making the Circular City Model operational, preserving and enhancing seas and marine resources in a sustainable way, through the construction of appropriate production and consumption models, with attention to relations with the urban and territorial system. The Circular Economy paradigm identifies the ideal context in the city-port to rethink traditional development models and make ports driver areas for the regeneration of the city and metropolitan territories, in compliance with the EU Directive 2014/89 which considers maritime spatial planning as a tool for public authorities and stakeholders to achieve an integrated approach, promoting the development of maritime and coastal economies and the sustainable use of resources. The paper, starting from these assumptions, presents an adaptive decision-making process for the strategies development of the Naples (Italy) commercial port, aimed at re-establishing a sustainable city-port relationship and making operative Circular Economy principles.

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