Adele Sateriano – författare

Renewed theoretical frameworks for planning, permanent monitoring and quantitative indicators based on official statistics, geographic information systems and remote sensing allow an inclusive and holistic representation of socioeconomic systems worldwide. By specifically focusing on metropolitan regions, this book offers a comprehensive analysis and interpretation of socioeconomic and territorial processes hampering spatial planning in Southern Europe, offering a theoretical and practical overview of topics and problems of great interest in the urban debate. Cities in the most advanced economies are progressively abandoning spatially additive, radio-centric patterns of urban expansion. The notion of ‘city-regions’ is meaningful for the understanding of contemporary urban agglomerations and modern patterns of urban growth, adopting a specific, ‘Mediterranean’ perspective. Understanding the reasons and causes behind this transition provides for a better comprehension of economic dynamics in Europe. Addressing the role of sustainability and resilience for urban management, this book offers a thorough reflection on how to manage large city-regions and to support the planning practices and governing action of policy makers and stakeholders. Through practical examples and case studies, the book finally proposes new statistics, indicators, and interpretative approaches, stimulating a thorough reflection on interrelation and complexity of local development mechanisms from different disciplinary perspectives.

Departing from conventional narratives centered on economic stagnation and social secularism, this book offers a fresh perspective on Mediterranean urbanities. It posits their correlation with housing and welfare regimes, societal transformations, local governance structures, and deficiencies in spatial planning. The analysis within delves into the neglected potential for mitigating regional disparities, conducting a meticulous examination of environmental disparities, economic imbalances, and overarching social inequalities in Southern European regions. The outcome aims to furnish an integrated, and potentially holistic, understanding of spatial divisions between cities and their surrounding territories.

A comprehensive understanding of mechanisms underlying metropolitan growth provides a more general contribution to the clarification of economic and social development processes on a local and regional scale. Thus, placing the territory at the center of the debate on sustainable, spatially balanced, socially cohesive, and environmentally friendly models of urbanization. In this sense, cities are no longer places of tradition and history. Over time, they have become regions of increasing complexity in all the pillars of sustainability. The most recent international reports on urban growth have highlighted how cities play a never secondary role in the increasingly pervasive global transformations that we persistently observe on our planet. This includes climate change to water scarcity, and poverty to environmental migration. The inherent difficulty in analyzing how urban systems are articulated, and consolidated, gradually growing or declining, highlights the complexity of this issue. Research tools should therefore adhere to a multidisciplinary vision that integrates different methodologies and empirical approaches. Based on the use of a large collection of indicators, our book allows the investigation of integrated dynamics of growth and development at different observation scales in a specific class of European cities, highlighting common growth paths and peculiar individual behaviors. Focusing on Mediterranean urbanities, the book traces back to specific historical phases, regional social contexts, economic cycles, thus contributing to the understanding of how urban development can adhere to long-term sustainability principles.