Housing evaluation with web-SDSS in urban regeneration actions

Abstract

Urban regeneration is increasingly a ‘universal issue’ and a crucial factor in the new trends of urban planning. It is no longer only an area for study and research, but it has become part of new urban and housing policies. Urban regeneration involves complex decisions as a consequence of the multiple dimensions of the problems such as special technical requirements, safety concerns, and socio-economic, environmental, aesthetic and political impacts, among others. This multi-dimensional nature of urban regeneration projects and the large capital investments required justify the development and use of state-of-the-art decision support methodologies to assist decision makers. This research focuses on the development of a multi-criteria approach for the evaluation of building conservation status in urban regeneration projects. This paper presents a web-based spatial decision support system (SDSS) to help decision makers in analysis of problems and in the definition of strategies and priorities of intervention. An example of an application to a real-world context is also presented.