Current deficiencies in municipal governance Include lack of coordination with central and regional government units, lack of defensibility in capital investment project decisions, inability to fully meet the needs of residents in various aspects of service delivery ranging from sanitation and waste disposal, transportation and recreation. In addition to exercising a fundamental democratic right public’s active participation provides: diversified knowledge that is essential to develop plans, accountability for the municipality due to the transparency of open and public processes, development of local expertise and skills, project ownership and subsequent contribution of local resources by the residents. Municipal Planning should incorporate citizens’ perspective and needs, and acknowledge the potential of them as valuable resources in improving neighborhoods in the accession process into the EU.

The paper consists of four faces:

1.New housing development in Ankara and the background of Cayyolu Neighborhood

2.Organizational Structure of "Cayyolu Neighborhood Unit":

-Formation of the idea of participation in local decision-making,

-Issue identifications, needs, municipal project definitions,

-Workshops

3.Presentation of the participatory project of "A Sustainable Open Space Network for Cayyolu",

4. Evaluation, recommendations and new project proposals for the construction of a new governance model during the accession into the UC.

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This paper presents the results of the PROPOLIS project aimed at defining sustainable long term urban strategies and at demonstrating their effects in European cities. The project is co-funded by DG Research within the "City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage" theme of the Fifth Framework Programme and is carried out by consultants and universities of six counties Finland, Germany, UK, Belgium, Italy and Spain.

The project has developed a set of indicators measuring the environmental, social and economic components of sustainability. Values for these indicators are calculated using enhanced urban land use and transport models and new GIS and Internet based modules. A large set of data is then produced addressing transport impacts on environment and on people living there (total emissions and exposure to CO2. NOX, PM, noise, etc), energy use of transport and land use, employment, regional competitiveness, biodiversity, justice of the distribution of impacts, opportunities of people, etc. A decision support tool is used to evaluate the sets of indicator values in order to arrive at aggregate environmental, social and economic indices for the alternative policy options. Weights used for such aggregation are implemented in cooperation with the local authorities directly involved in the project.

To include the long run land use effects a time horizon of 20 years or more is used and policy options in 7 European cities are systematically tested and analysed in order to arrive at optimum combinations of different leverages (land use, transport, regulatory, investment, pricing and fiscal measures).

The Propolis approach is both integrated and comprehensive, as it is able to reveal the interactions and multiplier effects by following the impact chains of the policy measures through the urban complex system.

Starting from the case study of Vicenza, Italy, project results are illustrated providing estimations of the policies effects and illustrating the differences among the different case cities and the different policy packages. Case cities location, dimension and morphology are very different and effects of tested policy packages can vary in relation to such elements.

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As we know, the urban design process is complex and also difficult to manage. Urban Designers, Government agencies, public communities and other organizations, are becoming aware of the importance of the common-collaboration and are becoming increasingly dependent on information technology and other spatial representation.

This needs of collaboration and cooperation is valid and necessary throughout all the urban development process, but may be in the Approval Process this need is amplified and it is necessary a quick, easy, innovative and useful solution. (CollABITA Model)

CollABITA Model will be basically a Web based Collaborative-Communication Tool with the intent to facilitate the Approval Process in Urban Design projects.

Urban designers will use the Model to link the ideal design to the physical form, quantitative data and models to qualitative issues, and make (communicate) this information in the Urban Design Process. Collaboration, communication and visualization are at the heart of the planning system, the map and plan in two-dimensional form has been the norm, although extensions to the third dimension are important through urban design that acts as the interface between planning and architecture.

To test the proposed hypothesis it was necessary to carry out experiments that assure the how the CollABITA Model can really help in the approval urban design process. Based on these assumption I started develop a schematic working chart of the functional Model (CollABITA). I identified the various problems and computer technologies that can be used alongside a sequential process, through which an urban designer might move in developing a design or set of alternative designs. Then I analyzed the platform where everyone can collaboratively participate, communicate and eventually manipulate their data and share the one made by the other participants during the approval urban process.

I discussed also different ways in which these visualizations might be automated and delivered to users, in stand-alone manner or over the net (internet, extranet/intranet).

I am confident that the use of Interactive Digital Models (like CollABITA) will dramatically facilitate the idea of broadening public participation, and indirectly by this, also collaboration in any urban design developments.

In Campania, the planning process of the overall regional transport system started up in the year 1996, when the transportation plan for the Municipality of Naples was endorsed by the City Council. The Metropolitan Transportation Plan of Naples (1996) has been developed on a twofold temporal perspective: at a first planning level, the objective is to identify a priority of interventions (i.e. the base-scenario) to be realized in the mid-term (4-5 years), maximizing the social benefits in the respect of current physical and economical constrains. At a second planning level, a first hypothesis of the overall transportation system to be completed in the long-term (10-15 years) is set up. The plan identifies a scenario of new infrastructures and transportation services, aiming at optimizing the budget currently available, and outlines a proposal for the overall system.

At present time, some facilities have been completed and are fully operative; some are in their building phase while some others are being designed. The metropolitan transportation plan of Naples proposes a rail network of 120 kilometers with 98 stations and 18 exchange points. Since its approval, 12 kilometers of new lines and 9 stations were opened to service. Currently further new lines are under construction and other ones are being designed.

Once completed, the city of Naples will have a procapite endowment of metropolitan and regional railways larger than most European cities. In addition, the new underground lines are being designed following the highest levels of formal aestethic quality.

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Across Europe there is a common challenge to improve the quality of life in urban communities and the associated urban region and to ensure the competitiveness of cities while promoting sustainable development assessed in economic, environmental, social and cultural terms.

Despite of the different identities, cities in all European regions have common features based on their history, urban form, social structure, natural and man-made environment. The introduction of new technologies have influenzed life and social spazial organisation. We wanted to get to know how the local urban actor as either urban planner deals with the potenzial Information Communication Technology and its influence on urban practices and urban structures. The goals of ICT policies can be distinguished by the type of social relations which they aim to promote. Particulary, we start by stating that ICT complex is seen as a force to drive the modernisation and transformation process of cities. The process of modernisation in not reduced to its economic aspects. Social, cultural and spatial implications of ICT are neglected and are not in the center of concern of public authorities. The aim of the paper is to identify and discuss the actual impact of ICT on local urban functions and form patterns at different spatials levels. We analyze the case study of Cagliari, in Sardinia, to definize how the spatial dimension and decision making during the last periods has changed.

The paper presents results concerning a model of stakeholders participation in order to increasing community awareness and teaching to manage Local Agenda 21 Forum through a simulated decision - making process. The adopt assumption is that an urban sustainable development cannot be realized without involving resident population and local policy-makers. They are the experts on the specific matter and responsible for it.

In the paper, both theoretical background of the method used and an application of the model of participation during a Workshop are presented. The starting point of the procedure is the EU program named European Awareness Scenario Workshop on Sustainable Living in the Coming Decades. The results presented here are about the use of this programme within ENEA project "Agenda 21 for small and medium size Italian municipalities".

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The re-use of territory has been one of the main points in the urban politics and in the dibate among specialists for a long time. Some terms such as "interstitial areas", "disused areas" and "containers" make firmly part of the specific lexicon today. Till now, the specific discussion hes prevalently developed with reference to some interventions of middle/large sized requalification, carried out in urban systems with a strong development dynamic geology. The importance of the stakeholders involved, the entity of the interventions and the latest provisions of the law (programme agreement, complex urban programs, etc.) have made their fulfilment possible, even "against" the expectations of urban instruments.

Such a circumstance has not encouraged a remark about two main points: how to make government instruments aiming to support and not to obstruct the development; how to define more efficacious procedures in order to exploit the plus-values generated by the urban growthfor a general utility. Such a methodological reflection is absolutely necessary if you want to face a very important technical aspect which has been scarcely investigated up to now: the criterion by which the paramenters determining the intensity of use of areas to be reused are defined, that is the plus-values the plan assigns them. In short, the "resources" which support of obstruct the re-use of residual areas.

It is in this perspective that the paper deals with the theme of the re-use of urban residual areas in small sized systems with a weak dynamic geology - that is where the weak plus-value attainable does not repay for the onerousness of the procedures - and it is articulated into two parts.

In the former, we discuss about the scientific and methodological problems which represent an "obstacle" for the urban plans to the re-use in such systems. Then, the technical formulations restated in some "town plan" of commues in Campania including 5000-25000 inhabitants. Allow to exploit the "relict" lands to be built in urban areas -undoubtedly the more conuenient ones- without compromising the stability of the system: on the other hand, they encorange the de-location of industries which are not compatible, even before becoming obsolete. In the latter, the efficaciousness of the technical formulations of the "town plans" is considered by means of some simulations of the effect they bring in the various stakeolders behaviour, with references to three purpose of use to which three different levels of plus-value, corrispond: a residential residual area, a residual area of public use and an area occupied by the industries to de-located. The evaluation is made by measuring the level of "satisfaction" they generate in the whole of the stakeolders and, as a consequence, the possibility of an effective archievementt of the trasformation foressen in the plan.

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The paper undertakes a critical and analytical appraisal of the one-year experience in building a local participative system for the development of a city-wide strategic plan in the urban area of Thessalonica, Greece. The analysis is based on the basic visions, principles, requirements, structures, mechanisms and tools identified in the literature and policy documents regarding the process of developing strategic plans for sustainable urban development, which is in general considered as a participative and integrated planning process. Besides, the knowledge base should be expanded to take account of urban strategic planning initiatives implemented not only in well-known and experienced European urban centres but also in less-experienced, less-developed and peripheral cities such as the city of Thessalonica. Having that, the structure of the paper follows a comprehensive presentation of, and discussion on, the research theme. It, first, gives a brief but inclusive account regarding the general background context that the city-wide strategic planning is developed within. Then it critically reviews and discusses the implementation process, by the policy agenda, the arisen principles and themes, the resulted organisational structure, the development and operation of the participative mechanisms in the different phases of the project, and the final inputs and outcomes. Special attention is given to the use of Internet and its effectiveness, through the assessment of the project’s Web site. Finally, the paper summarises the major findings, recommends necessary future arrangements, and draws upon this learning to pinpoint the basic issues, problems and contradictions in developing an effective strategic planning process towards urban sustainable development.

The creation of new renewal nodes in different parts of the city is a resource for urban regeneration and for the metropolitan drive in bordering regional territories that are becoming ever so close. The plan to change entire city neighbourhoods and the recognition of a new type of urbanism with mixed territorial usages, render Barcelona, and in particular its coast, yet another example of the modern European city. This stance is clearly driven by the desire to introduce complexity as a fundamental value of the mentioned proposal. The resulting new urban land is sensitive to the new ways of producing and embracing such land usage. Therefore, inevitably, new needs arise (activities, urban furniture, housing, commerce...), which together with modern infrastructure and information technology, render urban development attractive to the economic sector and to the citizen. Redensification, flexible planning systems, infrastructural endowments responsive to urban, social and economic requirements and an adequate intervention plan, all determine the new city model desired by these neighbourhoods. Could it be that the Information City, with its new projects and changes ahead, provides the definitive solution to greater and better integration? This may involve the application of sustainable concepts, the supply of public services, the redefinition of public and private spaces for infrastructural support and the application of systems (energy, telecommunications, waste disposal, accessibility and transport). They will produce a new definition of urbanism that is more real and accessible to its citizens, and as a result, and by logic conclusion, and that increases their daily connectivity. But will the underlying problems caused by the renewing the city in this way be resolved? Will the citizen perceive this transformation as a process in which it doesnt participate enough? These questions must be incorporated into the Mediterranean city that wants to be modern and creative without leaving behind tradition.

About one third of the Republic of Montenegro’s cultural and historic monuments are located in the municipality of Kotor. The major part of the municipality are the Boka Kotorska Bay with the Old Town Kotor, which are protected as the World Natural and Cultural Heritage.

Other two macro zones in municipality are: mountain hinterland (part of the future National park Orjen, with beautiful configuration and nature, rarely populated) and Grbalj Valley. (primary agricultural and working area, with main traffic corridors, and with plenty of free space towards the open sea).

This treasure of differences, concentrated in the Kotor municipality is the potential and quality worth saving and improving.

In the Municipality Spatial Plan and other urban plans (on different levels) beside to the adequate treatment of the Old town Kotor, special attention is dedicated to each settlement in Bay in order to preserve its authenticity, and the activities suggested should bring them back to their naval tradition. An active approach to the preserving and protection of numerous monuments (which with their new function and purpose could be saved from deterioration and ruin) has also been applied.

The main idea of these plans was setting general development conditions and potentials of the town and the surrounding territory. It was imperative that the right balance will be made between the given functions of the protected and unprotected parts of the municipality. Special attention was dedicated to the rapport, i.e., the communication with the remaining part of the municipality, to avoid turning the historical nucleus into an isolated island. In fact, these zones must be simultaneously integrated into the framework of modern society so that they are not reduced to mere open-air museums. The reactivation of such urban heritage also entails an adequate economic affirmation, since it can become an important source of revenues - primarily from tourism, but also as high-potential space.

On the other hand, there are many approaches for the treatment of settlements and spaces around the protected complexes, since they represent a testimony of a certain epoch, too. All this requires a given de-centralization of the municipal functions and the introduction of a new relationship: town - other settlements.

Therefore, the planned development should allow the higher quality of life along with the preservation of the authenticity in historic Old Town and the whole Kotor municipality.

The purpose of a lighting master plan is to show the added value lighting brings to the urban environment: safety, security, orientation, promotion, identity, ambiance and spectacle. It includes three principal phases.

Step one: analysis of the urban setting. The individual sites, then the city and finally the urban environment are studied by day and by night, taking into account the existing transport networks. The lack or excess of light and resulting ambiances are technically defined according to the place, the means of lighting, the light sources and the colour temperature. The analysis is also based on the existing resources available.

Step two: lighting strategy. The objective is to give the night-time landscape a strong and coherent impact, which reflects its infrastructure and its history. A total lighting concept is then proposed with a selection of future night-time images that respect the surrounding environment.

Step three: implementation. A stage by stage practical plan for implementation is proposed. This strategy makes it possible to rebalance any conflict that may exist between individual architectural monuments and public spaces, business districts and residential areas. Thus, the city at night can assemble the pieces of its identity while respecting its past and looking to the future.

The lighting master plan is presented as a report with many graphic elements and texts such as plans, cross sections, general diagrams, spatial and temporal synopsis. Invaluable for municipal engineering departments, this master plan, when used well, opens the way for a more accessible, more poetic city by night to the enjoyment of pedestrians and drivers alike.

In the Basilicata region, a group of researchers has been working on a project for nearly ten years: a basic research to make local people understand how important the Italian small villages, surrounded by nature, retired on Apennines, are for the future. Even though they are falling into decay and are depopulated at present.

Within the "Urban-tourism Regeneration Net" program, co-sponsored by EU and directed by prof. A. Sichenze, an ecological project related to the Nature-City, was born. The Nature-City is considered as an ecological connection field able to self-regenerate into new equilibriums. In order to make it happens following a process fully accepted by local populations, also taking into consideration sustainability principles, it is necessary not to leave the ecology up to the scientists. Instead it should become everyone’s knowledge. As a matter of fact, within the strategy of nature-city, also thanks to "Urban-tourism", ecology discovers a real connection with "living", an oikos of an eventually XXI century civilization, without gaining in ideology. This means that suitable tools, places and modalities should be proposed. Something on process in the Basilicata region, is a new kind of scientific-tourist Park, where indwelling is also possible in very different ways, according to variety of nature: a park of ecological accommodation facilities. The idea of an echo-museum is still a bit "embalmed", and it is overcome in a telematic and multimedia connective system. Beginning from exploring the park, that also implies the relationship between city and countryside, it is possible to discover new connections of fragment-city within the park’s natural world and virtually project oneself into a nature-city network.

An ecology of nature-city makes visible hidden connections by using them, projecting the built environment on a new understanding level.

Keeping the youth in these super but depopulated villages of the Lucanian Apennines is not easy; the unemployment rate is very high. Therefore the Basilicata region, together with the local University, have focused on some complex multi-purpose work lines, mainly based on “Urban-tourism Regeneration Net”, co-sponsored by EU and directed by prof. A. Sichenze.
The above-mentioned program aroused the city-inn project. It put together several villages-inn that would start up the regeneration of historical centres for tourism purposes, in a quality working of natural product context.
Within a PIT (Piano Integrato Territoriale or Territorial Integrated Plan) inspired by “Urban-tourism Regeneration Net”, it has been defined a net of nucleuses strictly connected to countryside and the woods, where a pilot City-inn, ahead with the regeneration, is being testing a new “Countryside-City-World” connection.
Here there are summarised some of the peculiarities characterizing a contemporaneity of actions, projects and innovative interventions, based on a new way of living and innovating in the lifestyle: something that can only be experienced during the holidays, for the time being.
We believe that guests and tourists, meeting together, may create a mutual attraction between tradition and innovation and therefore a mixture of different accommodation facilities that would lead up to an ecological re-generation of the small towns. This is the main point. Basically starting from a city-inn netting house, we would have a network of cultural, tourist and ecological products related to the building and the living, plus the tourist fruition within the nature-city (Urban-tourism). From here the virtuous circles able to re-generate a typological diversification needed to urban ecology, not only, but also the longed-for new origin of the human institutions in places surrounded by nature.

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The area under study is situated around a canal adjacent to the city centre of Kortrijk, a city with approximately 75.000 inhabitants (Flanders - Belgium). As in many European cities, water bound activities have vanished, leaving the zone desolated. The district has become a gathering place for low income groups, migrants . Laying this close (within one kilometre) to the historical city centre, this nowadays-isolated area has a lot of potentials. The aim of the study is looking out to update its system both spatial and social.

One of the concepts investigated, is a network of tourist attractions in the region. There is the potential of the historic city centre (with both its cultural heritage and its leisure accommodations), the river the Leie with its attractions for water sports, the longitudinal leisure axes along the channel and the Leie, ... By establishing this network with a cluster of socio-cultural activities within the industrial heritage of the canal area, the district will achieve a clear function within the region and within the city.

A second part of the study is looking how to include the neighbourhood and its inhabitants and obtain urban revitalisation through generation of new activities, spaces, and connections.

Finally, the study shows a design of how the area can be organised so spaces can be used by different kind of people (visitors, inhabitants, employees, ) and so have meaning within a city.

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This paper illustrates the Multimob system to promote sustainable mobility at inter-urban scale. Multimob is a ITS project with three main objectives:

 To increase accessibility of conventional and innovative transport systems;

 To steer transport demand towards environmental friendly transport modes;

 To enhance private transport vehicles efficiency by means of managing a car-pooling scheme (increase of occupancy rates) and promoting car-sharing schemes (reduction of car-ownership rates).

Multimob is an internet platform offering services and providing information for travellers in sub-urban context. Its prototype is being developed by a consortium of four municipalities in the metropolitan area of Milan (Italy) and is co-funded by the Environmental Ministry as part of the Agenda 21 initiatives. It covers a high-density urban area with a congested road network and poorly integrated public transport services.

The system might be seen as a one-stop travel information site, with up-to-date and accurate information about all forms of transport in the area: cycle paths, parking, car-pool, car-sharing schemes, public transport timetables, dial-a-ride systems, special services for disabled, etc. Multimob offers more that a travel planning site - which normally refers to scheduled transport services  and gives a complete view of all transport alternatives, including innovative and decentralised systems. Travellers might use Multimob at the planning stage of their trip - in order to learn about transport alternatives and available services  as well as in the course of the trip  for up date information about the status of transport services.

Key strengths of the project are:

 Multimob is conceived as a modular system, capable to deal with different degrees of development of the proposed services. It might be set-up with a limited number of services and its configuration can be enriched through time as more transport forms are introduced in the area.

 The management of the system is a public-private-partnership including local authorities, scheduled public transport operators, mobility managers and private entrepreneurs (i.e. taxi, car-sharing, etc.).

 To monitor Multimob transport services performance a set of indicators has been developed, considering efficiency, effectiveness, service quality and environmental impact.

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There being two very different ways of understanding and addressing the urban fact — that is, two city models — there are also two quite distinct ways of connecting citizens: urban versus suburban culture. My thesis, then, is that there is a strong link between urban model and possibilities of communication of people in an urban territory.

The first model, referred to as the public city or simply as the city, has its origins in the Mediterranean world, though some corrections and updates are necessary. The essence of this model, however, is that it is actually conceived as a place for meeting and exchange, and therefore encourages personal communication in the public space. This is a formalised, neutral space that cannot be appropriated; it is continuous and fluid, heterogeneous as regards uses, constructions and people and, for all of these reasons, complex despite its spatial clarity. The paradigm would be the classical town square.

The second, qualified as the domestic city, that may be likened to the concept of human settlement, is the sum of the rationalist city and the so-called modern city. This latter is the product of the economic liberalism from a few decades back, according to which the congregation of people takes place in spaces designed for consumption. These are semi-public spaces, the object of private appropriation; they are discontinuous and located in specific nucleuses, for homogenous and intensive use, intended for consumers, and physically confusing rather than complex.

In the city, public space, but particularly the central area, offers places for co-existence that vary in use but also physically and sociologically with, in some cases, the addition of the symbolic dimension. In the human settlement, supply is concentrated in polarities and has little variety of components due to the homogeneity of use and to its interiorised nature.

This paper explores a negative scenario of connectivity that occurs in the form of a conflict of interests between global and local actors in the context of urban development strategies related to the hosting of a major event. The popularity of such strategies among European cities lies in the perceived confidence that they provide the opportunity to tackle structural urban problems, improve the urban infrastructure and leave sustainable projects with a lasting legacy.

However, a closer look at this win-win scenario reveals that both sustainability and legacy are contestable due to a very important inbuilt structural incoherence between planning for the city and planning for an event. This particular political economy of development is explored through the conflicts between the global side that wants a great event and the local actors that look for ways to develop their city.

By questioning the apparent optimism of the conference agenda this contribution does not intend to discard the challenge of connectivity. Rather, it demonstrates that if we are to talk about networked space then we need to acknowledge the vertical interaction between different scales of connectivity. Hence the focus is at the city scale, however the implications of a broader field of interaction are explored, ranging from the international to the street level. Moreover if connectivity is to make sense then we need to evaluate the structural conflicts that appear when different scales interact in overlapping networks. Otherwise, as analysis in this paper suggests, structural differences can jeopardize the outcome of policies.

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To design lighting systems using networked mainframes is a logical development of our discipline. The upgrading of public lighting infrastructures, with data interlinked control systems, can give cities endless possibilities to increase the visual environment and therefore the quality of life they host. Lighting can vector emotions by creating a complex and pleasurable reading of our surrounding by night. The aesthetic role of public lighting has long been overestimated as a physical phenomenon with physiological implications leaving behind the its psychological implications. The funding for the lighting of heritage, low income housing, suburban blight, shanty towns, highways and roads, intermediary train stations, etc, etc. have always been scarce. The fact that light can improve the living conditions of cities can be inferred by the way artificial lighting has impinged the development of civilization. Lighting has always been a vehicle of culture, Altamiras paintings happen under the spell of hundreds of oil lamps, a technical challenge, even for todays technology. The planning of lighting in towns requires a deep understanding of the influence light has in the nocturnal environment it helps to create. Public and private investors must change the current mind setting in relation to the design of public lighting.

My paper is an attempt to advance the understanding of the pertinence of infrastructures based in networks and its consequences in the transformation of urban environments into more enjoyable areas.

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Prat de Llobregat, a city in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, currently has an approximate population of 63.000 inhabitants. The city is preparing to face one of the most important urban challenges in its recent history. The Delta Plan was decisive insofar as the redefinition of the great infrastructures surrounding the city of El Prat, both due to the magnitude and singularity of these, has conditioned its urban development, which even exceeds the municipal framework. The current challenge has the considerable dimension of approximately 200 ha and yet, is of a municipal character insofar as the degree of dependence of the development in respect of other administrations is no different to any other common plan.

The General Metropolitan Plan made a land reserve north of the city for a business centre, limited by the south branch, the Castelldefels express road, the Llobregat river and the road going to the airport. This land reserve no longer makes sense now that the airport is expected to provide activities that were once supposed to be developed at the business centre.

That’s why El Prat is beginning to study the change in land use reserved for Business Centre and how that land may become part of the city, with housing areas, commerce, public facilities, parks, economic activity, etc. This change necessarily implies a modification of the GMP, and the city sets out a series of objectives that can be summarised as follows:

1- To find an answer to the growing demand for housing

2- To design a complex city, with various uses, economic activity, commerce, leisure, services, etc. Sectoral specialisation of Prat Nord ought to be avoided.

3- To recover the city’s geometric-historic centre with the new growth of Prat Nord.

4- To support sustainable growth by discriminating against the use of private vehicles, prioritising public transport, building and providing guidance in the direction of maximum use of natural energy, planning of waste collection and grey water recovery, etc.

5- To integrate what are now separate infrastructures (rail and express road) in order to ensure constant and harmonious relations between the city and Prat Nord.

6- To complete and improve the equipment offer of the city as it stands today.

7- To put land aside for the creation of economic activity.

The incorporation of the tramway at the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona means, amongst others, the opportunity for some municipalities to reorganize and redevelop the areas where this more sustainable mode of transport runs.

Despite of the urban growth happened during the last decades in an obvious way around the urban city centers of the Area, the roads passing through the different municipalities are still interurban. That is to say, that the main traits of these roads are: high traffic intensity, a space distribution in favour of the private vehicle, speeds highly superior to the average one in cities or small sidewalks and in consequence the increase of insecurity of the people on foot and reduction of life quality of the citizens. In that way, introduce the tramway represents the possible transformation of these roads in civic ways, integrating them in the urban continuity and recover the quality of life of these spaces and of the economical activity. On the other hand, this transformation implicates a change of the cross section of the track, enlarging the sidewalks or renovating the urban furniture.

Finally the content of our presentation refers to the measures to take in order to achieve in a correct way the reorganization and redevelopment of the ways where the tramway runs. The case of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona will be studied in depth especially the actions to be developped by the municipalities as the one of Molins de Rei.

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The Sant Climent torrent was a physical barrier, a separating element between the districts on either side, a degraded area with its back turned on the rest of the town.

The opportunity for town-planning development has been exploited to convert this negative space into a new green area of the town, a space for cohesion and integration.

A common Framework Plan has coordinated the town-planning development of 8 urban sectors and has enabled us to reach the objectives for town improvement. It has been necessary to draw up and carry out up to 20 planning and town-planning management instruments.

The planning has become a means, in this case, for creating a public green space, using the Sant Climent torrent as a focal point; this open space will be extended until the mountain and the beach areas are connected together.

At the same time, the infrastructural work needed to cover part of the torrent (800 metres) has been carried out. It has taken just 4 years to draw up the plans and carry out the whole project.

The functional and scenic improvement to the torrent has enabled us to recuperate its potential as a unifying, geographic boundary of part of the Llobregat delta region. Overall mobility in the town centre has been improved by the construction of an important section of the basic road network. In turn, the central districts of the town have shown an improvement in the deficits in public space, facilities and parking spaces.

The urban structure around the Sant Climent torrent turns out to be a clear example of a new model of integrated growth.

Cities are frequently described as localities where connectivity, accessibility and communication are maximized. Although they are equally frequently characterized by internal inequalities and lack of cohesion, the very fact of the concentration of activity produces an interconnected whole with systemic properties. However, there also processes at work which are hostile to interaction and connectivity. Processes of social fragmentation and isolation lead to introverted communities with a high degree of reluctance to endorse city-wide identities, conceptual patterns and development strategies. Administrative structures, oriented as they are towards diverging and often conflicting goals, tend to emphasize isolationist values and attitudes inimical to co-operation. The development of land use patterns, affected as they are by institutional and legal factors, produces discontinuities which lead to a fragmented townscape. City space incorporates tendencies which tend to negate the unity of the urban system, both in physical and institutional terms. Local administrations tend to view their area of jurisdiction as a closed system. Local societies tend to become self-absorbed and dominated by self-interest to the detriment of the functional operation of wider systems. And, above all, planning failures and private interests produce areas of inert space, which destroy continuity and connectivity. Material for this paper will be drawn from a series of research projects, conducted by the authors, on the mixed use, but mainly industrial, district of Elaionas in Athens. This large area, located very near the centre of the agglomeration acts as an obstacle of communication and interaction and is a major cause of environmental degradation.

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The Southern Italian little villages depopulate and grow old, they are in a state of neglect and suffer from a desertification problem. But, to a tourist tired of metropolis, those villages represent a Great Field for the future, still.

At present, the two big questions are how to make this heritage available for everyone, respecting its own personal pace and the variedness of its landscape and the perfect re-generation strategy of the nature-city.

Thanks to a research sponsored by the European Union, they discovered the "principles" and the peculiarities of the so-called "Nature-City." Analysing 150 urban cases, using 10 project-analysis categories, the (multi-sectorial) paradigm of the nature-city was made. Only considering a constitutive base in common would let us study an economics and ecological strategy of connective relationships among the "overall" and the "circumscribed", based on the predominant use of endogenous resources.

After all, the nature-city had to be considered within an ecological and entrepreneurial advanced planning field, able to guarantee a future, clearly placing it within an "operational sustainability" between civilization and nature conditions and ecological re-conversion. Here there are: the advanced multimedia model to explore the policentricity, called Polipolis; a kind of laboratory to represent the "catalogue" of sustainable cities, integrated by an ecological project Bank, called Eudossia; Urbstourism, a new tourism type to explore the nature-city and develop different roles: an engine for the economy, a way to learn-enjoy the nature-city and the starting point for a quality regeneration creating a city-inn.

This planning tool complex has resulted in several integrated applications, especially in the Basilicata region; where the architecture promotes "nets", inspires entrepreneurial projects and offers itself as an ecological re-generation system to the relationship between the small towns and the countryside.

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In an urban context where truth has manifold manifestations, new critical tools for evaluating the physical environment need to be developed. By acknowledging judgment, interpretation and association as indispensable and even fundamental for the manner in which a human being relates to the world, one can elaborate methodologies of investigation characterized by multiplicity and subjectivity in order to respond congruently to the eclectic appearance of the urban realm. A critique aiming to find the truth therefore seems no longer feasible as a model to interpret reality. Not only our quest for truth, but also truth itself has transformed. Therefore critical theory needs to be given full rights of existence, being more then just a point of view. The acceptance of truth as multidimensional and fluctuating establishes a new correlation between the thing and its mental image. By subverting their hierarchy of substance versus distortion, the representation of reality can free itself from pre-conceptions that prevent us from grasping the worlds complexity. This suggests an opportunity to investigate how the essence of contemporary urban form itself can offer a new set of critical tools. Based on a study of paradoxical thinkers like Heidegger, Robert Smithson, Stefano Boeri and Saskia Sassen this essay is a journey towards a multi-subjective approach of the urban fabric. By confronting their profound concepts about the in-between, ,the entropic, the eclectic and the temporal with a case study of contemporary architectures of dwelling, this research explores new critiques for a partial truth.