Urban regeneration, climate adaptation, and territorial governance. Experimentation and innovation in the Plan for an integrated strategy between urban planning and ecology

The profound changes resulting from the processes of metropolisation, which characterise the new urban question, induce significant changes in the meaning of the problems linked to town planning, the environment and the landscape, highlighting the inadequacy of certain conceptualisations and recalling, today, more than ever, in the current situation of global health emergency, the urgency of activating policies, strategies and tools which provide integrated responses to the instances of environmental regeneration, social revitalisation, cultural and economic enhancement of the city. This is done by prioritising the protection of health and the wellbeing of settled communities, in order to restore prospects of equity, urban-ecological quality and efficiency to the governance of contemporary cities and territories. This scenario, which recalls the need for intersectoral and interinstitutional convergence between all policies affecting urban regeneration and territorial governance, is reflected in the most recent Community programs and policies and is also a transversal objective of the NRP (Mission 5 Inclusion and Cohesion (Urban Regeneration and Social Housing), as well as of the NRP 2021/2027 (AT 2 Humanistic Culture, Creativity, Social Transformation, Inclusive Society in close correlation with AT 5 Climate and AT 6 Environment). In this context, the contribution presents some of the results of the research activities carried out by the authors that highlight, starting from the analysis of national and international planning experiences and best practices, the urgency of defining new perspectives and new theoretical-methodological and operational references for an innovative planning system, as a tool for a sustainable and resilient regeneration of contemporary cities and territories, at the supra-municipal, municipal and local scale, with significant impacts on mitigation of and adaptation to the effects of climate change.