Improving an urban sustainability environment through community participation: the case of Emilia-Romagna region

In the national planning context, Emilia Romagna government policy leans quite heavily toward a participatory approach to urban development. At first public participation has been promoted for creating place and community identities and for conceiving a more effective and democratic assessment of the territory, with the aim to turn people from passive consumers of urbanity to creative re-shapers of cities. But since the 1990s onwards, the quest for sustainable development reinforced the role of people’s commitment in the long-term transformation of the city environment, linking community participation with the need to act for a more sustainable urban environment. Nevertheless, these planning policies are still not sufficiently working and more efforts are needed for becoming more effective and for making the development of the regional urban environment more sustainable.