Global infrastructure is at a crossroads. Sustainability and climate-resilience imperatives, new geopolitical headwinds, technology and connectivity issues, as well as the ongoing reconfiguration of global value chains, all call for a rethink in how infrastructure is designed, built and maintained. Leading world economic powers are envisaging new infrastructure plans that could fit in new trade and industrial strategies, with the ultimate goal to increase sustainability, economic competitiveness and resilience. Meanwhile, the use of digital technologies entails new risks for the security of critical infrastructure. How are global value chains changing, and how does this affect infrastructure? How could more resilient infrastructure transform economies? How to enhance the quality and sustainability of new and existing infrastructure? And how to safeguard security in critical infrastructure?
In the aftermath of the pandemic, global demand for infrastructure is booming. National plans around the world show that infrastructure is likely to provide the backbone for a resurgence in public expenditure, and to support growth in economies badly hit by the pandemic.As all the biggest powers and blocs (the EU, the US, China, and Japan) have recently announced their plans for climate or carbon neutrality, the room and need for green and sustainable infrastucture are greatly expanding. Decarbonisation and digitalisation will be underpinning this latest investment drive in infrastructure, with sustainability and ESG principles at its core. However, infrastructure expenditure will not come without risk: after the pandemic, the world will be left with the highest levels of public andprivate debt since World War II, and the sustainability of key investment decisions must be carefully evaluated.How to foster quality and sustainable infrastructure investment? What role for the private sector? What future for sustainable mobility? What kind of policies will countries adopt to reach carbon neutrality?
In today’s tumultuous and fast-changing times, digitalisation and technology are game changers in a wide range of sectors and have a tremendous impact on infrastructure. Roads, railways, electricity grids, aviation, and maritime transport are deeply affected by the digitaland technological transition, with gains in terms of competitiveness, cost-reduction, and safety. Digitalisation is also a key tool for fostering global commitment towards sustainability, but the race for digital infrastructure is also a geopolitical one. As the world’s largest economies are starting to adopt competitive strategies, a level playing field appears far from being agreed upon.Why are digitalisation and technology the core domains of global geopolitical competition? How are they changing the way infrastructure is built, operated, and maintained? To what extent will road, rail, air, and maritime transport change by virtue of digitalisation, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things? How to enhance cyber protection for critical infrastructure? What are the EU’s, US’ and China’sdigital strategies?
Global infrastructure is at a crossroads. Sustainability and climate-resilience imperatives, new geopolitical headwinds, technology and connectivity issues, as well as the ongoing reconfiguration of global value chains, all call for a rethink in how infrastructure is designed, built and maintained. Leading world economic powers are envisaging new infrastructure plans that could fit in new trade and industrial strategies, with the ultimate goal to increase sustainability, economic competitiveness and resilience. Meanwhile, the use of digital technologies entails new risks for the security of critical infrastructure. How are global value chains changing, and how does this affect infrastructure? How could more resilient infrastructure transform economies? How to enhance the quality and sustainability of new and existing infrastructure? And how to safeguard security in critical infrastructure?
In a world on the brink of a global recession caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic, the infrastructure efforts of today and tomorrow are more crucial than ever.For one, they are an indispensable countercyclical tool to mitigate the negative effects of the economic paralysis.But they also constitute a pivotal component for a country’s development, raising its competitiveness in the long term. That is why infrastructure will continue to play a critical role even when the pandemic crisis has been tamed.Rapid demographic growth, increasing urbanization, especially in developing countries, coupled with the ounting challenge posed by climate change, are trends that are not going to disappear with the virus.How to cope with these global, long-term trends? How to finance the increasing need for infrastructure? Which major international actors will take the lead? And what role will technology play in shaping the future of infrastructure?
In today’s tumultuous and fast-changing times, digitalisation and technology are game changers in a wide range of sectors and have a tremendous impact on infrastructure. Roads, railways, electricity grids, aviation, and maritime transport are deeply affected by the digitaland technological transition, with gains in terms of competitiveness, cost-reduction, and safety. Digitalisation is also a key tool for fostering global commitment towards sustainability, but the race for digital infrastructure is also a geopolitical one. As the world’s largest economies are starting to adopt competitive strategies, a level playing field appears far from being agreed upon.Why are digitalisation and technology the core domains of global geopolitical competition? How are they changing the way infrastructure is built, operated, and maintained? To what extent will road, rail, air, and maritime transport change by virtue of digitalisation, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things? How to enhance cyber protection for critical infrastructure? What are the EU’s, US’ and China’sdigital strategies?
In the aftermath of the pandemic, global demand for infrastructure is booming. National plans around the world show that infrastructure is likely to provide the backbone for a resurgence in public expenditure, and to support growth in economies badly hit by the pandemic.As all the biggest powers and blocs (the EU, the US, China, and Japan) have recently announced their plans for climate or carbon neutrality, the room and need for green and sustainable infrastucture are greatly expanding. Decarbonisation and digitalisation will be underpinning this latest investment drive in infrastructure, with sustainability and ESG principles at its core. However, infrastructure expenditure will not come without risk: after the pandemic, the world will be left with the highest levels of public andprivate debt since World War II, and the sustainability of key investment decisions must be carefully evaluated.How to foster quality and sustainable infrastructure investment? What role for the private sector? What future for sustainable mobility? What kind of policies will countries adopt to reach carbon neutrality?
The regeneration of critical urban areas through the redesign of public space with the intense involvement of local communities seems to be the central focus of place-making according to some widespread practices in academic and professional circles. Recently, new expertise maintains that place-making could be an innovative and potentially autonomous field, competing with more traditional disciplines like urban planning, urban design, architecture and others. This book affirms that the question of 'making better places for people' should be understood in a broader sense, as a symptom of the non-contingent limitations of the urban and spatial disciplines. It maintains that research should not be oriented only towards new technical or merely formal solutions but rather towards the profound rethinking of disciplinary paradigms. In the fields of urban planning, urban design and policy-making, the challenge of place-making provides scholars and practitioners a great opportunity for a much-needed critical review. Only the substantial reappraisal of long-standing (technical, cultural, institutional and social) premises and perspectives can truly improve place-making practices. The pressing need for place-making implies trespassing undue disciplinary boundaries and experimenting a place-based approach that can innovate and integrate planning regulations, strategic spatial visioning and urban development projects. Moreover, the place-making challenge compels urban experts and policy-makers to critically reflect upon the physical and social contexts of their interventions. In this sense, facing place-making today is a way to renew the civic and social role of urban planning and urban design.
Urban planning is a complex field of knowledge and practice. Through the decades, theoretical debate has formed an eclectic set of possible perspectives, without finding, in our opinion, a coherent paradigmatic framework which can adequately guide the interpretation and action in urban planning. The hypothesis of this book is that the attempts of founding an autonomous planning theory are inadequate if they do not explore two interconnected fields: architecture and public policies.The book critically reviews a selected set of current practices and theoretical founding works of modern and contemporary urban planning by highlighting the continuous search for the epistemic legitimization of a large variety of experiences. The distinctive contribution of this book is a documented critique to the eclecticism and abstraction of the main international trends in current planning theory. The dialogic relationship with the traditions of architecture and public policy is proposed here in order to critically review planning theory and practice. The outcome is the proposal of a paradigmatic framework that, in the authors’ opinion, can adequately guide reflections and actions. A pragmatic and interpretative heritage and the project-orientated approach are the basis of this new spatial planning paradigm.
Carved from a piece of pine by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a small Italian village, Pinocchio was created as a wooden puppet, but dreamt of becoming a real boy.
‘A “Treatise on Abundance” (1638) and Early Modern Views of Poverty and Famine’ is an edited English translation of Carlo Tapia’s ‘Trattato dell’abondanza’. First published in Naples in 1638, the treatise offered the earliest systematic attempt to develop and publicize the most effective tools available to governments to fight famine and poverty. In particular, Tapia moved the discussion of these issues away from traditional religious approaches and aimed instead to offer a theoretical understanding of the issues—based in part on his study of both classical sources and contemporary legal theories—and practical advice that could help administrators in the provinces and in the capital.
In a large apartment house in central Rome, two crimes are committed within a matter of days: a burglary, in which a good deal of money and precious jewels are taken, and a murder, as a young woman whose husband is out of town is found with her throat cut. Called in to investigate, melancholy Detective Ciccio, a secret admirer of the murdered woman and a friend of her husband’s, discovers that almost everyone in the apartment building is somehow involved in the case, and with each new development the mystery only deepens and broadens. Gadda’s sublimely different detective story presents a scathing picture of fascist Italy while tracking the elusiveness of the truth, the impossibility of proof, and the infinite complexity of the workings of fate, showing how they come into conflict with the demands of justice and love. Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia all considered That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana to be the great modern Italian novel. Unquestionably, it is a work of universal significance and protean genius: a rich social novel, a comic opera, an act of political resistance, a blazing feat of baroque wordplay, and a haunting story of life and death.
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