Multidimensional Assessment for “Culture-Led” and “Community-Driven” Urban Regeneration as Driver for Trigger Economic Vitality in Urban Historic Centers

Abstract

In the current scientific debate, cities represent the contexts in which resources, capital, skills, and talents are concentrated and, at the same time, they are places where many challenges are concentrated regarding environmental (pollution, waste, climate change), economic (unemployment, social exclusion, well-being), political (instability in governance processes, lack of strategic planning), and cultural (training, creativity and innovation) dimensions. The city and historic centers in particular, are able to experiment the paradigm shift from a linear economy to a circular economy, in which synergic, fair, and inclusive processes capable of activating new forms of urban productivity and social and economic innovation are promoted. In particular, the European Commission identifies cultural heritage as the main driver of development and supports strategies in which it is considered as one of the founding elements of possible transformations, which can be activated through mixed top-down/bottom-up approaches, in the short and long term. In this perspective, cultural heritage can play a decisive role in terms of the urban strategy capable of generating new economic, cultural, and social values, which trigger innovative dynamics of local development. To address current urban challenges, this paper attempts to use a multi-criteria analysis to decision support, starting with a Multi-Stakeholder Decision Analysis (M-SDA), in order to assist decision makers in choosing suitable scenarios to trigger circular development processes, taking into account the role of cultural heritage in a systemic landscape perspective. The result is a hybrid methodological approach for designing complex urban regeneration processes able to assess which new uses/functions and potential actions, identified by the involved community, can trigger a circular development model which could be more suitable to implement a model of “culture-led” and “community-driven” development.