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This open access book includes a selection of innovative contributions presented at the 4th international conference "Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2022", held in Bolzano, Italy in July 2022. Featuring 10 papers by academics and consultants, strongly rooted in practical experiences and international projects, it discusses current ground-breaking research in innovative and sustainable planning for cities, with a focus on the environmental, economic, and social challenges associated with the global sustainability transition and energy systems integration. The contributions are illustrative of the richness of the issues discussed and the breadth of the emerging themes, including innovative business models for building and infrastructure at district level, integrated sustainability assessment schemes for Positive Energy Districts, a material flow accounting model for regional metabolism, energy communities as a lever to promote historical and landscape values, optimized and electrified last-mile logistics, multi-criteria decision analysis tools to redefine center/periphery relationships, a framework for socio-spatial analysis related to social practices, design principles and communication technologies improving both indoor and outdoor public spaces, augmented nature-based solution coupling the green elements with the latest technologies to deliver healthier and more appealing cities.

This open access book includes a selection of innovative contributions presented at the 4th international conference "Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2022", held in Bolzano, Italy in July 2022. Featuring 10 papers by academics and consultants, strongly rooted in practical experiences and international projects, it discusses current ground-breaking research in innovative and sustainable planning for cities, with a focus on the environmental, economic, and social challenges associated with the global sustainability transition and energy systems integration. The contributions are illustrative of the richness of the issues discussed and the breadth of the emerging themes, including innovative business models for building and infrastructure at district level, integrated sustainability assessment schemes for Positive Energy Districts, a material flow accounting model for regional metabolism, energy communities as a lever to promote historical and landscape values, optimized and electrified last-mile logistics, multi-criteria decision analysis tools to redefine center/periphery relationships, a framework for socio-spatial analysis related to social practices, design principles and communication technologies improving both indoor and outdoor public spaces, augmented nature-based solution coupling the green elements with the latest technologies to deliver healthier and more appealing cities.

This open access book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the 3rd international conference "Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions", held in December 2019 in Bolzano, Italy, and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning, including top contributions from academics, policy makers, consultants and other professionals. Innovation processes such as co-design and co-creation help establish collaborations that engage with stakeholders in a trustworthy and transparent environment while answering the need for new value propositions. The importance of an integrated, holistic approach is widely recognized to break down silos in local government, in particular, when aimed at achieving a better integration of climate-energy planning. Despite the ongoing urbanization and polarization processes, new synergies between urban and rural areas emerge, linking development opportunities to intrinsic cultural, natural and man-made landscape values. The increasing availability of big, real-time urban data and advanced ICT facilitates frequent assessment and continuous monitoring of performances, while allowing fine-tuning as needed. This is valid not only for individual projects but also on a wider scale. In addition, and circling back to the first point, (big) urban data and ICT can be of enormous help in facilitating engagement and co-creation by raising awareness and by providing insight into the local consequences of specific plans. However, this potential is not yet fully exploited in standard processes and procedures, which can therefore lack the agility and flexibility to keep up with the pulse of the city and dynamics of society. The book provides a multi-disciplinary outlook based on experience to orient the reader in the giant galaxy of smart and sustainable planning, support the transposition of research into practice, scale up visionary approaches and design groundbreaking planning policies and tools.

"This book presents cutting-edge work on innovative planning methodologies, tools and experiences aimed at supporting the transition of our cities and regions towards a more smart and sustainable dimension. This book comprises a selection of the best papers from the international conference 'Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2015', held in November 2015 in Bolzano, Italy. Contributions from different research fields within urban and regional planning from the scientific as well as the professional community are presented: energy planning for cities and regions, how to couple the energy-climate goals with the development or renovation of the built environment and how to tackle the vulnerability to climate change; smart and sustainable technologies, big data, integrated infrastructures and mobility management, from holistic geospatial tools to innovative apps and Internet of Things; benefits, costs and opportunities of urban transition toward a more smart and sustainable dimension, accounting and assessment of values and trade-offs within the decision making processes; governance for smart and sustainable growth, fostering place-based policy-making, active and effective stakeholders' participation, co-production and public-private partnerships; cooperation and demonstration projects: their role in fostering the adoption of new approaches and technologies, towards the development of win-win solutions."--Provided by publisher.

Nowadays energy transition is a recurring topic, which describes the process of an energy system moving from fossil-based sources towards renewables. The transition can unfold at different levels, from the single initiative of a local com-munity to a complex cross-border agreement. The latter type is well represented by EUSALP, the European macro-regional strategy for the Alpine region. One of its aims is to transform its territory into a model region for energy efficiency and renewable energy. To support a well-informed decision making process, this study provides the first insight about the status quo of energy balances in EUSALP, at local as well as aggregated level. Moreover, it offers an overview on the various energy targets defined by the territorial units that constitute the EUSALP region. Data has been retrieved via a bottom-up quality-oriented process consisting of (i) a survey targeted at responsible person in local energy departments; and (ii) data control and harmonization. We found that the EUSALP region is actually a model region only in clean power production, whereas starting point as well as energy targets of territories are highly heterogeneous. We al-so identified the need of more harmonized data collection methodologies. We conclude that this bottom-up process can support and legitimate policy makers in cross-border cooperation activities under a smart macro-regional energy strategy, which pursues an increment in energy savings, renewable energy production and a broad engagement of relevant stakeholders. DOI: http://dx.medra.org/10.19254/LaborEst.16.13

In an increasingly urbanized world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economy growth hubs, as well as ensuring a better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organizations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations while issues such as air pollution and urban heat islands are being exacerbated. Nature will struggle to compensate for this in future cities, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting livability. VARCITIES puts the citizen and the "human community" in the eye of the future cities' vision. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing H&WB of citizens that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe through shared public spaces that make cities livable and welcoming. ; N/A