Shaping Future Cities: Turning Assessment into Strategies and Actions for Resilience

Prof. Francesca Abastante, Dr. Ombretta Caldarice, Dr. Beatrice Mecca (DIST, Politecnico di Torino) are guest editors of  Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) for the Special Issue: “Shaping Future Cities: Turning Assessment into Strategies and Actions for Resilience”

Special Issue Information:

The past decade has been the hottest ever recorded, underscoring the urgent need for effective global and European efforts to reduce emissions. In line with the objectives of the European Green Deal, adapting to climate change in urban environments is a key priority. Although urban areas cover only 4% of Europe’s land, they are home to 75% of its population and account for 70% of total emissions, making them central to the green transition.
However, research indicates that fewer than 40% of European governments engage in an efficient planning process for infrastructure investments or systematically assess project quality before implementation.
In this context, two critical issues emerge in advancing climate adaptation in urban areas:

1. The use of nature-based solutions and ecosystem approaches to promote biophilic urban design;
2. The development and application of decision-making and evaluation tools to support policy choices by assessing the values created and lost through potential transformations.

• Multicriteria decision support approaches;
• Value creation;
• Nature-based solutions;
• Ecosystem approach;
• Climate resilient cities;
• Policy-making;
• Sustainable urban policies;
• Sustainability assessment;
• Cost–benefit evaluation;
• Mixed methods.