Enhancement of Public Real-Estate Assets and Cultural Heritage

We live in an era in which the demand for public goods is increasing with progressively ongoing physical and functional deterioration of existing goods, whether they are of absolute intrinsic value or provide secure social service (mobility infrastructure, social, commercial, leisure and culture equipment, etc.). In this scenario, future territorial redevelopment projects can be based on an open system of social attractors, composed of appropriately selected and enhanced public utility assets to promote their knowledge and use. Research has received incentives and resources to advance these projects. Identifying effective models for the recovery, financing, and shared management of heritage intended as a common good, which is often unused, is essential for transforming what is now recognized as a cost for society into productive investment, not only from economic but also social, cultural, and environmental points of view, from a circular perspective. We foresee cultural heritage as a potential element of a territorial system that continually redefines itself, and sustains and reproduces from within. The re-use of cultural heritage can be considered an essential contribution in the realization of a model of economy and city/circular territory, capable of preventing the waste of environmental (soils, materials, energy, etc.) and cultural resources (tangible and intangible heritage, knowledge, etc.), and capable of transforming waste into new economic, environmental, cultural, and social resources. The nature of public goods considered by the enhancement projects and the strong articulation that characterizes the redevelopment projects of a territory requires complex approaches. For public goods, enhancement projects involve determining the profile of greater social preference with respect to alternative options, to balance heterogeneous and often antagonistic factors. For this purpose, choices derived from the analysis of trade-offs of the type equity/efficiency, conservation/transformation, environment/economy, use/protection, public administration/civil society, public sector/private sector, and individual interest/collective interest are decisive, as are the decisions arising from new problems such as the participation of the community in decision-making processes and the prefiguration of shared project scenarios; the definition of compatible horizons with respect to short-, medium-, and long-term choices; or the systemization of various public goods and the interrelation of this system with the needs and supply in its territory. The complexity of the projects in the city, territory, or environment in question requires technical, scientific, and humanistic knowledge and skills that are capable of recomposing cognitive areas has progressively been separated and turned away by the hyperspecialism of recent years, producing often distorted and harmful effects. Today, the different areas of planning are called upon to overcome their self-reference and to seek interrelationships with the many types of knowledge involved to achieve a more advanced cognitive balance that responds to the needs of the contemporary world. Full awareness of having to operate in a cognitive quadrant is required based on conditions of uncertainty, risk, indeterminacy, instability, discontinuity, and a multiplicity of knowledge. Studies have shown that the scenario in which projects are implemented for the enhancement of public goods is problematic. The difficulties inherent in the prevision of the effects and impacts of the projects imply numerous conditions of risk and uncertainty. In this context, assessment can be used to determine the resolutive value of the existing problems as its cognitive system can help build or select implementation strategies of