Accessibility as a “Key Enabling Knowledge” to Human Development: the Accessibility Plan

Abstract

In Italy, according to Law no. 41/1986 and Law no. 104/1992, public entities must draw up a Plan for Elimination of Architectural Barriers (PEBA). Unfortunately, many years after the introduction of these laws we can see that the PEBA is not yet a reality in much of the country. In trying to solve this critical issue and to overcome the conceptual and methodological limits of the PEBA, the Region of Tuscany, by means of the Province of Pistoia, commissioned, between the 2008 and 2010, two research projects at the TESIS Interuniversity Research Centre at University of Florence. This article presents the main outcome of these research projects – an “Accessibility Plan” –and describes its ethical horizon, the conceptual innovations that it introduces, the cultural perspectives that it opens and the methodology that it uses. In Italy, several municipalities are already carrying out planning tools inspired by the concepts and methodology of the Accessibility Plan.