This paper focuses on three interrelated questions on urbanization and the geography of development. First, although we herald cities with their industrial bases as "engines of growth," does industrialization in fact drive urbanization? While such relationships appear in the data, the process is not straightforward. Among developing countries, changes in income or industrialization correlate only weakly with changes in urbanization. This suggests that policy and institutional factors may also influence the urbanization process.

The great 21st-century migration into cities will present both a great challenge for humanity and a significant opportunity for global economic growth. This paper describes the diverse patterns that define this metropolitan migration. It then lays out a framework for understanding the costs and benefits of new arrivals through migration's externalities and the challenges and policy tradeoffs that confront city stakeholders.

Housing matters to the livability of cities and to the productivity of their economies. The failure of cities to accommodate the housing needs of growing urban populations can be seen in the proliferation of poorly serviced, high-density informal settlements. Such settlements are not new in the history of rapidly growing cities, their persistence results as much from policies as from economics and demographic transition. Slums have attracted most of the attention on urban housing in developing countries, and the Millennium Development Goals have given prominence to their reduction.

Growing like “wildfire”, traffic congestion, the spread of pollution, the inefficiency of the services, the chaotic mix of land uses, lack of green are some of the features, unfortunately now become familiar in cities across the world. This is an interesting time for both examine the tools available to urban planners expression of for the analysis and definition of policies both to see how they have adapted to the new conditions. A betterenvironment and qualitylandscapes are necessary conditions for attractinginvestments, assets and people. But they are not sufficient.

The present paper stems from the evidence that one of the reasons of the “crisis” of today's cities probably depend on mobility issues.   But what should be done to confront all the negative impacts of passenger transportation, without curbing mobility? Can Urban Engineering be applied to promote a friendlier mobility, that should be not only environment and climate friendly, but user friendly as well? And how?

The conceptual horizon of this essay is related, on the one hand, to the adjustment process of the implementation plans of the historic centers of the municipalities of the Sardinian region to the Regional Landscape Plan (RLP), and, on the other hand, to strategic planning as an important tool to guide land transformations in order to implement effective local development processes.  We address these issues through a critical analysis of a set of implementation plans of the historic centers (IPHCs) of Sardinian municipalities adjusted to comply with the rules of the RLP, in the frame work o

This paper analyzes the evolution of land use in the Molise Region. The attention is focused on the changes that occurred primarily on the rural area of the coastal area in this Region.  The presence of urban centers of limited dimension, both for the demographic performance and for the dimensional order, is the main characteristic of this area. The historic part of rural tradition, at the same time, no longer emerges as a primary component of the regional landscape.

The paper presents the case study of the Pilot-Plan of Brasilia, important example of modernist urban design protected as human heritage. Discusses a methodological process to promote visualization of maximum envelops of urban volumes, organized in a set of rules and scripts which structures urban parameters in a logic of volume constructions. Applies City Engine - ESRI facilities to construct and visualize the urban rules. It has the goal to promote characterization, analysis, proposals and simulation of urban parameters in order to support decision making in land use transformation.

Landscape connectivity is one of the major issues related to biodiversity conservation and to the delivery of Ecosystem Services (ES). Several models were developed to assess landscape connectivity but lack of data and mismatching scale of analysis often represent insurmountable constraints for the correct evaluation and integration of ecological connectivity into plans and assessment procedures. In this paper a procedure for ES assessment related with Habitat and Bio-Energy Landscape Connectivity (BELC) is proposed.

As an endless melting pot of experimentation and innovation, cities must reorganize and retrain compared to the growing new needs. In the light of the actual urban debate, it can be useful to do an in-depth study. In fact, the quality of urban life and collective well-being cannot be separated from the identification of a network of public services and facilities, that organizes and structures the city. That network is not resolved in the themes of pre-school and compulsory education, public interest, green spaces, car parks and public interest, but rather has a wider variety of types.

Transport energy consumption accounts for about one third of total energy consumption in EU. Despite significant advances in transport technology and fuel formulation, transport energy consumption has increased in most EU countries over the last three decades. This increase in consumption occurred as a result of factors such as higher car ownership, a growth in automobile use and an increase in vehicle distances traveled.

The paper concerns the study of the energy infrastructure that have the most impact on rural land. The analysis focuses on the systems for wind power and ground–mounted photovoltaic plants.