Urban regeneration as an opportunity of social innovation and creative planning in urban peripheries

Abstract

Environmental, social and economic challenges appear even more severe in cities, which are places with the highest population density where disparities and inequalities sharpen above all in peripheral areas characterized by the lack of services and connections, precarious infrastructures and environmental conditions, and fragile social relationships. Therefore, urban peripheries are privileged laboratories to test integrated strategies of regeneration with a place-based and people-centred approach that includes actions in crosscutting sectors. The capacity to face these phenomena requires welfare models based on ideas of social innovation, participation, and central role of the public space for the new scenarios of hope proposed by the paper.