Assessment of development and regeneration urban projects: cultural and operational implications in metropolization context

It has been worldwide demonstrated that metropolization phenomenon is changing in an indelible way the structure, the shape, the livability and the environment of contemporary cities. This phenomenon can not be circumscribed in a specific national context but it involves the urban sphere of the entire planet. Moreover, the suburban growth and the connected sprawl, have quite everywhere the same shape and present the same problems: the most critical concern the environmental issue, considered in an extensive meaning, that involves both natural and anthropic elements. Considering the ecological approach the paper explores cultural and operational implications of assessment methodologies able to control and address new developments to sustainability. First the Metropolization phenomenon is analyzed throughout general data and specific thematic studies, considering the reasons of the birth and diffusion of the suburban model and the related critics; than the level of complexity that integrated assessment principles involve is connected to European Community proposals and to ethical concepts capable to guide aware plans. Finally a case study is presented with reference to the Italian context and in particular to the city of Pavia in which a research, developed by the author, about renewal plans of urban dismissed area, permitted to define a set of integrated criteria that can support planners and designers in finding sub-optimal revitalization solutions.