Certification Protocol “Historical Small Smart Cities”: a Decision Support System tool for the strategic management and recovery of Minor Historical Centers

Abstract

The ongoing research is presented for the definition of a Decision Support System (DSS) addressed to the minor local administrative bodies of the internal areas. The tool, called HISMACITY Protocol (Historical Small Smart City), has been built in its hierarchical structure, which runs from objectives identified on the basis of a preliminary study. It is the SWOT analysis of the characteristic elements of the small historical centers of the areas examined, both in Italy and in Spain. The objectives contribute to the reduction of the depopulation risk of these urban centers and to the improvement of basic services and localised employment opportunities, while at the same time aiming to protect historical heritage. The guidelines contained in the protocol formulate the opportunity to provide for the relocation of services to the capitals or some specialised centers, i.e. major centers that offer the concentration of multiple services and productive activities, according to a network strategy, and the Institute of Union of Municipalities, as supported by the National Reform Plan in Italy, promoted by the Agency for Territorial Cohesion, and by the consequent National Strategy for Internal Areas.

The protocol definition method is briefly described: through a comparative analysis of the literature on the Smart City and sustainable cities, on the recovery of historical centers, as well as on the protocols for sustainability and urban regeneration initiatives, the evaluation criteria have been defined and connected to the established objectives. These criteria have been then joined with simple and compound indicators that allow the measurement of qualitative and quantitative performance standards, for the purposes of classification and scoring. The criteria are sorted into six action areas: Mobility, Economy, Environment, Heritage, Living, Governance. Each criterion is associated with at least two alternative proposals for integrated intervention, and a series of concrete actions which will be partly chosen by local decision makers on the basis of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique of the Multiple-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). Each municipality will be obliged to choose at least one alternative associated with one criterion for each area of action. The system can be modified during the decision-making process by means of a geolocated data platform, processed on a GIS software. Regarding cultural heritage protection, this framework includes the “modulation of the protection”. It is a procedure already included in the technical standards for implementation (NTA) of the Recovery Plan of the historical center of Formello (Cerasoli, 2010). It detects the types of intervention range, from restoration and conservative rehabilitation to building repositioning. They follow a cataloging work and in-depth analysis of the characters and types of existing built heritage, which allow for the classification of building categories. 

The data used in the framework refer to the various constituent elements gathered on the historical analysis centers (road, infrastructural, geomorphology of the urban tissue, etc.), useful for the definition of performance indicators. Currently the system’s architecture has been defined on the pilot project of the urban center of Sutri, in the province of Viterbo. It is also being assessed the possibility that it can be made scalable on the historic center of Berga, in the province of Barcelona, in Spain. The protocol can become the first case of experimentation of a dynamic data collection and analysis tool for the intelligent management of small historical centers in rural areas, also useful for monitoring the expected results through its connection to the application of IOT sensors. The numerous challenges that today's centers in marginality are facing, including climate change, in addition to gentrification and the risk of the inexorable loss of much of the minor building heritage, make tools such as HISMACITY necessary and the evaluation of their adoptability at the institutional level, a possible plan to be seriously evaluated.