Land Take and Urban Renewal: A Study Concerning Sardinian Urban Areas (Italy)

Land take is the “Change of the amount of agriculture, forest and other semi-natural and natural land taken by urban and other artificial land development” (European Environment Agency, 2013). In 2011, the European Commission (EC) put in evidence that an important milestone for the EU should be to reach the goal of no net land take by 2050, and to take under strict control the impact on land-taking processes of the EU policies in the new Structural Funds programming period (2014-2020) (Communication of the EC to the European Parliament COM(2011) 571 of 20.9.2011). In this paper we address two intertwined issues in the conceptual context of land take. First, we analyze and compare the characteristics of a fundamental phenomenon related to land take, that is the change from non-artificial to urbanized areas in medium-sized towns. We study the phenomenon in some coastal cities of Sardinia and try to put in evidence a few lessons, both in terms of determinants of urbanization of non-artificial land and of planning policy implications. Second, we consider one of the most important land take-related issues, that is urban renewal concerning historic centers’ preservation. Indeed, restoration and reuse-based policies of historic centers is one of the most effective ways of preventing land-taking processes, especially in terms of increasing the housing stock. Under this perspective, we analyze the determinants of the perceived quality of the urban environment of Cagliari’s historic district through a survey addressed to the resident families and administered through a questionnaire. The survey is interpreted through a discrete choice model whose results put in evidence several important inferences related to residential satisfaction. These inferences could be very helpful for the definition of future public policies for a substantial improvement in the quality of life of historic centres, related to public services and infrastructure endowment, for example public parking, refuse collection and retail shops