Knowing the urban landscape for a sustainable environmental planning in Pescara city

The new challenges for European cities are competitiveness, social inclusion, sustainability, multilevel governance, smartness. In order to overcome these challenges, the environmental education - which is based on knowledge of past experiences is an essential tool to present and prevent future environmental problems, outlining strategies to choose among various alternatives for the organization of the city. Significant experiences of Strategic Planning for a middle-long term regeneration of cities have been implemented in some European areas in achieving the EU sustainability goals. In this paper the outcomes of the first studies for a Strategic Plan in Pescara are presented and some questions are taken into consideration. The recent processes of urban regeneration taking place in the city show the importance to examine closely the urban landscape in order to enhance the local natural resources and to implement projects which could affect the overall urban structure, reconnecting parts of the city remained incomplete or disjoined. We also highlight the need for a strengthening of transparency and communication of public choices to the community. In particular we outline the question of the port areas regeneration in Pescara; we formulate a decision making model for the functional re-use of these areas which have a particular environmental value and which are considered as "strategic" for the future redevelopment of the city. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Huseyin Uzunboylu