A Multi-Scale Method to Drive Sustainable Urban Densification Processes: A Case Study in Italy

The increasing attention to the no net land take (NNLT) goal in Europe has been affecting many regional contexts, which tend to address it by promoting policy instruments based on urban densification. However, this approach could collide with the need to ensure a good functioning of the urban system and to preserve urban ecosystems through the presence of natural spaces. Hence, assessing methods able to orient urban planning towards sustainable densification are needed. With this aim, this abstract describes a method to support the decision-making process by identifying priority areas for densification (or desealing), by using parameters and indicators which are easy to calculate. The assessing method has been structured on three different levels: from the urban scale to the neighborhood and to the block scale, allowing to perform a more detailed analysis only in those areas which are more suited to host densification actions. The method has been tested in the city of Ravenna, Italy, where the municipality is drafting the new urban plan in compliance with the Regional Law 24/2017, which set a target of NNLT and consequently pushes towards an urban growth based on densification. The proposed methodology has proved to be an easy to apply and effective tool for structuring a system capable of assigning priorities to densification / desealing actions, based on the environmental and urban characteristics of the various urban areas, thus offering a simple tool to local administrations for supporting informed urban policies.