Space matters, this is not an entirely brand new statement, even if found in the fairly new European Spatial Development Perspective, published by the European Union in 1999. It makes us aware about the interrelatedness of social and economic development processes with spatial structures, facilitating or preventing changes (ambivalence of structures, e.g.Giddens). The changes are induced by (some might say ‘required’), e.g. economic global-isation or European integration. The increasingly important spatial arena is the city region which becomes the field of more and more development strategies and experiments.

Looking at a city region such as Hamburg, above still abstract discussions and hypothesis take on a very concrete form: From a global spatial/strategic scale down to the very local spa-tial scale a number of strategies overlap and try to achieve one result in particular, the crea-tion of economic advantages, of competitive positions, of creativity and innovation. Overall, the design of a response capacity is at stake, allowing facing the multitude of challenges, posed by the complex framework conditions for spatial development.

The paper will present a number of strategies in the city region of Hamburg and in other ma-jor European city regions. It will follow a case study design, highlighting aspects such as actor structures, rhetoric, conflicts – and, where applicable, results. Finally, an outlook on the pend-ing changes in the professional field of planning is also provided, including a critical reflection.

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The Metropolis of the XXIst century are facing problems which presents, more or less, the same patterns all over the world. Two of them are the urban sprawl and the need to be more and more competitive in a Global scenario. The result is the growth of the urban areas importance as noodles for the regional development and, in consequence, areas, which concentrate the major part of the investments. The need to face these problems instantly, or in a short period of time, forces the authorities (European, Regional and Local), to define, in a clear way, strategic objectives. One example among others is to, congregate all the European Citizens into the Internet and Network age. The urban areas are the spaces of excellence to reach these objectives and the inner city the most stimulate laboratory for regeneration processes.

Places for creativity, for culture and leisure, places to work, places to live, places to visit, all of them presents the high density of mixed functions. But also large brownfield areas, for example ex-industrial neighbourhoods or vacant spaces without a defined use, which are necessary to bring to the urban atmosphere again.

In this article, it will be analysed the importance of the implementation programs of the Information Communication Technologies (ICT’s), in the inner city regeneration process, in order to avoid the urban sprawl and to make our cities more liveable. The case studies are Barcelona, Dublin, Porto and Rome. Through a cross analyse, which consider, the problems, the objectives and the actions; we intent to give an overview of the different urban projects that uses the ICT’s as an important tool to regenerate the inner cities. And, in the end, to propose the fowling discussion topic: It will possible to think in a network of European regions, based in cities with high density of functions connected with information, science and technology, knowledge and creativity?

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After a period of positive expectations about the implications of the Information Communication Technologies (ICT’s), now we assist to a more sceptic attitudes related to this issue. One of the possible reasons can be: the high level of expectations generated in the citizens; the breakdown period of the new economy, and the impossibility to give clear guidelines about the future by the scientists and politics. The work field is plenty of question marks.

When it was decided to present this poster (published at www.planum.net), several questions appears, but with only a single goal – how to keep our readers interested in this question when the expectations are so low?

We tried to create a bit, an impulse, a space of discussion. For all the interested in the urban and regional development and the ICT’s. Here, you find a complete source of information: news, best practices and best sites selection; more than 300 selected links; a complete list of events (conferences, congress, exhibitions...) and others. From this initial point (the bit), we plan to create the discussion about some crucial topics to the urban and regional development.

There is no doubt that we are crossing territories of positive (volunteer actions, new technical programs...) and negative (social inequities, cyber terrorism...) polarities.

Maybe we are capable to create a global positive bit, a really network designed to tell that bit territories is not only a scientific matter, is first of all a reality. A real time and a real space, with implications in the urban and regional development and in the everyday life of several millions of people.

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Notwithstanding the often intense conflicts that have left their mark on history, Mediterranean cities have always contained many spaces for the meeting of different resident cultures, enabling them to mutually intermingle.

Today this is no longer true. In an age that seems to reward intolerance and lack of acceptance of that which is "other", the places of exchange and construction of hybrid identities seem to survive with difficulty, hiding within the folds of existing cities. Furthermore, the sharpening of controls on the debarkation of refugees and naval traffic at ports judged to be "not secure" after the September 11th attack of last year, accentuates the tendency towards the isolation of "fortress Europe".

This loss of connection between worlds that are culturally heterogeneous but linked by history and geography becomes a more general process of disarticulation of the structures that have formed Mediterranean cities. It is as if the built forms of settlement and the forms of life of the inhabitants were progressively becoming detached, provoking a condition of growing estrangement now common to urban experiences within profoundly diverse traditions. Long-term relations between physical and social places become unhinged. And the traditional city tends to reduce its own role as synthesizer of differences, to be transformed into a territory where heterogeneous populations and urban demarcations extraneous by virtue of their form and rules of functioning coexist.

We are currently unable to predict the outcome of these changes. There are too many unknowns resulting from conflicting political events and from the unstable scenarios that inform some of the key countries in the Mediterranean basin, such as Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and the entire Balkan area.

We should not allow the unpredictability of these changes to impede us in imagining different futures for the cities of the Mediterranean. This era is marked by an unusual contraposition of impetuous growth of global interconnections and multiplication of local conflict. But even in this new era, one can refer to Fernand Braudel’s image of a network of border cities linking hands, connecting through waterways, airways, land and rail links, with the addition of new digital links. These are the networks that catalyze exchanges between the regions that face the sea; they act as links between local development systems that interact competitively but also cooperatively, having understood that the destinies of those bordering on such a small sea are fatally interwoven, and that isolation would damage everybody.

This image, which contrasts so strongly with current pessimistic scenarios, shouldn’t seem too unreal. Profound links between urban cultures exist and they represent a living heritage and a resource to focus on for the near future, when the values of global proximity and complex connectivity will begin to be felt even in an area as tormented as the Mediterranean.

In any case, it is cooperation between cities that is the most realistic antidote to the politics of isolation and defensive entrenchment that today seem even more impractical than in the past. If it is not the economy that fortifies these networks, it will have to be security policies – the case of Albania has already made this fact clear to us Italians.

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1. European level; connecting cities in a polycentric Europe. Tema: Non connected regions; natural parks and protected zones, rural areas and peripheries.

Il Progetto APE, avviato nel 1995, coinvolge le 14 regioni italiane i cui territori sono parzialmente ricompresi nella catena montana dell’Appennino, compresa la Sicilia; una dimensione dunque rilevante sia rispetto alle "Linee di assetto del terrtorio nazionale", sia allo "Schema di sviluppo dello spazio europeo" (SDEC)

Obiettivo del Progetto è la riconnessione di una complessa realtà economico-territoriale che ha come caratteristiche comuni una elevata ricchezza del patrimonio ambientale (l’Appennino ospita tra le maggiori aree protette italiane) e storico-culturale, una densità insediativa bassa e la persistenza di attività economiche legate al mondo rurale.

Il network istituzionale coinvolto nel Progetto APE è molto ampio, comprendendo a livello statale il Ministero dell’Ambiente e della tutela del Territorio, 14 Regioni (delle quali l’Abruzzo, che propone la partecipazione alla "Quinta Biennale", ha ruolo di capofila), 51 Province, 188 Comunità Montane e circa 2200 Comuni.

La proposizione del caso nell’ambito della "Quinta rassegna della città e degli urbanisti" riguarderà in particolare";

1. l’illustrazione delle principali caratteristiche ambientali, territoriali e socioeconomiche dell’Appennino italiano;

2. l’esposizione delle attività e dei progetti sinora avviati al fine di riconnettere le differenti realtà appenniniche;

3. le attività ad oggi programmate per rafforzare la unitarietà e l’efficacia delle politiche di conservazione e di sviluppo portate avanti dai differenti livelli istituzionali (Stato, Regioni, Province, Comunità Montane, Comuni).

L’esposizione degli argomenti citati troverà spazio in un numero di pannelli variabile tra 3 e 5 .

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There is a dense network of more than 200 inland ports in the European countries, not limited to Member States of the EU. Inland ports are platforms for intermodal transport, since they are the only facilities that can combine road, rail, inland water-way and where geographically possible short-sea-shipping (SSS).

One of the main characteristics of inland ports is that they are usually located in the city centres, often very close to the point of origin or destination of the goods. Their geographic location within the city centre allows for the use of environmentally friendly transport modes as inland navigation, rail and SSS as close as possible to the point of destination, thus replacing a considerable amount of lorries that would otherwise contribute to more congestion on the regional and urban road network.

Inland ports function as regional hubs for shippers and freight forwarders that make use of the beneficial situation an inland port offers – on the one hand to be near your clients’ demand on the other hand to take advantage of the variety of transport modes offered enabling the supply chain manager to select the mode the most ap-propriate for any specific solution.

The integration of ports into urban and regional development, however, is facing challenges. Due to the prominent location of ports their territory necessary to provide sophisticated services is under pressure. Ports, cities and regions have to come to an integrative solution. In many cases port territory can partly be given away for new urban developments, however, the existence of the port should be recognised as added value with regard to sustainable urban and regional transport solutions.

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The idea of a more balanced and sustainable territory, have been growing of importance since Kunzman and Wegener (1991) presented the "European Grape" in opposition to the "European Banana". The European Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON), supported by INTERREG III, is now developing the new programme for 2006. The measure 1.1. - "Cities, polycentric development and urban-rural relations" shows the importance of this field for the enlarging European Union challenge. In fact, the study of the role and potentialities of urban areas, in particular, how major cities could be nodes of a polycentric model is essential to the territorial development of all Europe.

Nevertheless, the configuration of urban polycentric strategies should be complemented by the analysis of urban-rural relations, which became quite relevant because they could represent the opportunity to create a more balanced and sustainable regional development, particularly at national level. In this paper we will present some considerations about this theme, supported in the Portuguese case, where the sprawled development of coastal areas contrasts with the depopulation of the interior territory.

According to the widespread phenomena of globalization – in terms of geographical segmentation of labour, and transient migrations – high skilled professionals who travel between world cities for their multinational corporations, the concept of territorial mobility and global cities become strictly linked with the international labour migrations.

In this paper the case of international labour migrations among high skilled professionals of Ict will be analysed from the point of view of the labour demand and recruitment corporate strategies.

A picture of what is happening in the ICT sector in Italy will try to show who are the Ict people that are actually part of this territorial international mobility and the reasons why this mobility does or does not exist. The impact of Ict international migrations will consider the different outcomes and strategies in terms of physical and real movements (temporary or permanent migrations, IT consultancy, international internal corporate mobility) or virtual (brain drain, brains without bodies, body rental etc.). A picture of the different strategies of labour recruitment will consider the questions of the cost of labour, the needs and state of the Ict market and the issue of labour mobility.

The question and the reflection on the consistency of international Ict mobility and of professional transient migrations affecting the city structure will be traced. The aim is to ground the Ict international mobility in its impact as a national labour character and on its possible effects for the city in terms of labour migrations.

The labour approach is useful in order to frame Ict sector into its international and national dimensions and in its possible effects at the urban local scale from the point of view of Ict workers and their recruitment.

The present paper is based upon some results of the ongoing European research Pemint (The Political Ecomomy of Migration in an Integrating Europe). The Pemint Projects studies the international labour migrations in 6 different countries in 3 sectors (ICT, construction and health) from the perspective of the company recruitment strategies through interviews with HR managers.

European policymakers are reportedly reviewing initial proposals for a National Broadband Network Infrastructure program. But, with no proven public policy model on the exact same subject and scale already in existence, perhaps there are lessons to be learned by studying the events that led up to the creation of the U.S. Interstate Highway System (a notable national infrastructure grand plan that has delivered measurable results).The point of this comparison is simple: most people will search for personal meaning, relevance and substance in a public policy position statement, and when they find it - sometimes great mountains of opposition can be moved, and that same energy redirected to a common cause of mutual benefit. Here's a case in point.

Then-U.S. President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, but this significant accomplishment was the culmination of a vast concerted effort by many determined policymakers and their credible advisors. Furthermore, this enactment was preceded by many years of preparatory analysis and planning work. As an example, Congress originally decided to explore the concept by creating The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938, and directed the chief of the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) to study the feasibility of a six-route toll network.

In addition, Eisenhower's advisors didn't cloud the public debate with how wide interstate highways should be; they instead espoused the social and commercial end results made possible by this underlying infrastructure development program. Of course, these technical points had to be addressed behind the scenes in a detailed proposal, but it wasn't mentioned in the initial "issue positioning and messaging."

Resisting the urge to focus attention on two-lane or four-lane highway capacity, or the utility of straight or circular access-egress ramps to main highway arteries, they instead captured the people's imagination with images of positive social and economic transformation (improved access to regional trade, easier movement of goods for export, more jobs created to support this increased movement of goods, etc.).

Also, the staged implementation of this plan and the deployment of the physical infrastructure (highways and bridges) occurred over many years, and actually didn't reach nor benefit all the intended beneficiaries as soon as had been originally anticipated. In fact, consider how long it really took to make ubiquitous high-speed road transportation a reality in America: "The last stoplight on the Interstate system was removed in the 1980's. It was on I-90 in Wallace, Idaho and when it was removed, the local townspeople gave it a proper burial in the local cemetery, complete with a 21-gun salute."

Clearly, while all grand plans take significant time to implement, they all appear to have another key thing in common -- they always start with an articulate and compelling vision of the future that people can rally behind, because they believe in the heart of the message and they have trust in the orator.

Conclusively, I offer an example quote (from the prior U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater) as the epitome of inspirational language that's proven to trigger uplifting emotions which resonate with all people: "The Interstate System is a tremendous engineering achievement, but it represents far more than concrete, asphalt and steel, said Slater. The Interstate System changed the way we live and the way we work. It is an engine that fuels our economy, creates jobs and serves as a gateway to opportunity. It is truly the tie that binds, a system that connects all of us to this wonderful land, America the beautiful."

So, if we were to apply the "best practices" from these valuable lessons learned, then how might we best portray a National Broadband Network Infrastructure program that's likely to be broadly embraced? Perhaps we can explain the intrinsic role of broadband networking technology, by the effective use of simple and yet vivid analogies. Suddenly, we're able to cast aside any negative perceptions of a mercenary lobbyist, and instead assume the role of the informed storyteller, a wise mentor, or a thoughtful and caring agent of change.

Therefore, we should explain the enabling role of broadband infrastructure as a foundation for e-business, and the anticipated outcome to contribute to the common good of a given community. Then it's easier to see the real impact of proximity and access (or the lack thereof) to broadband network arteries. By comparison: consider the prior economic impact to the towns along Route 66, in the aftermath of the creation of the U.S. interstate highway system. The "cause and affect" is apparent, and you don't need to be a professional economist to comprehend the commercial and social implications to impacted local communities.

We should explain how the Internet isn't just about "surfing" web pages, and offer up specific examples. In fact, there are pragmatic applications of how even small and medium enterprises (SME's) can leverage the Internet to positively open up new markets for their products and services (See our BP2BP GeoBridge Project outline for further details of this phenomenon).

Unfortunately, much of the recent progress to make the Internet relevant and indispensable to SME's is unknown to policymakers, and frankly the underlying principles of these nascent technologies are quite complex, if presented from a technocrat’s perspective. So, let's also depict simple analogies for these key concepts.

In summary, it's my opinion that greater importance must be placed upon the more obvious benefits of tangible business applications that are totally dependent on attaining and enhancing access to appropriate telecom infrastructure. Policymakers will choose to comprehend, and ultimately endorse, a value proposition that is based on a premise that is clear to them, and compelling -- because it's stated in such a way that it's relevant to a broad cross-section of their local constituents.

Policymakers must to be briefed on a rational broadband deployment business case that clearly resonates with mainstream constituents. Therefore, more emphasis must be applied to simplicity, clarity and pertinence of a broadband public policy proposal, in order to attain meaningful progress on this issue. Initially, I was all for "educating" policymakers, but I've since discovered that it is us (the telecom and ICT industry thought-leaders) that needs to learn what constitutes the effective communication of ideas.

Let's all rise to the occasion, and hone our storytelling skills. Alternatively, let's recognize that the power of passionate persuasion needs to be at the forefront of selecting an appropriate spokesperson for this cause, not technical expertise.

Let's acknowledge that broadband networks are the means to an end objective; they're not the essential aim or the ambition that drives people who seek their inherent benefit. Somehow this perspective tends to get lost in the often-myopic "bigger bandwidth" dialogue.

Given the experience of the residents of Wallace, Idaho, perhaps we can all witness the same level of passionate community engagement, when the enlightened citizens of your local community finally lay the last 56Kbps analog modem to rest.

The European Union enlargement to the Central and East European Countries will change deeply the geopolitical image of the Europe. Present border areas could get many benefits by the enlargement policy. If we see an European map there are only three seaports that could intercept the new commercial flows generated from the new member state of the European Union: these are Hamburg, Trieste and Saloniki. All of these three cities are involved in renewal processes and transformation of the port and each of them is emblematic of three different European situations.
Hamburg is a big city based on the corner of the European economic centre (as it is placed in the recent image of the “Pentagon”) in a regional monocentric space. On the other hand Saloniki is a middle size city in a backward region. In between is based the middle size city of Trieste, that benefits of the well-developed north-east Italian region.
With following, these are the main research question. Which kind of strategies do cities with similar features, but in different location, develop? How do these cities prepare themselves to compete in the new geopolitical scenario? What is the meaning of being part of the European Space?
With following, these will be my operation research: the reconstruction of the projects and policies framework; the comparison of urban strategies; the identification of links between European policies and city strategies.