Measuring Settlement Efficiency. Application to an Urban Regeneration

Urban regeneration is defined as a set of comprehensive actions aimed at providing solutions and leading to the recovery of physical conditions, and economic activity, the socio-cultural integration of community members and the restoration of environmental quality in places where these aspects have declined. In this context, there is a need to incorporate sustainable development goals into the decision-making process. In fact, there is currently no concrete and applicable tool that planners can use to obtain empirical and measurable results on how to achieve these goals. This paper proposes a methodology to assess the urban settlements efficiency. The focus is on the settlement, which can be identified as a neighbourhood or an urban area that is the subject of a neighbourhood plan, in an attempt to lead the debate to an operational scale and to reflect on the contents of the plan on a detailed scale. The model uses a system of indicators specifically built from a broad survey of scientific articles and international experience. More than twenty quantitative and qualitative criteria are proposed as the basis for evaluation. This methodology led us to define and calculate the composite settlement efficiency index (EI). Identifying indicators for the urban environment is essential for monitoring urban trends. Their use makes it possible to control both the measurement and evaluation of each system’s component’s contribution to the overall effi-ciency of the settlement. The methodology was applied to an urban regeneration case study, located in Nocera Inferiore (Southern-Italy). The evaluation permits performance comparisons to be made between different project scenarios, and variations on an indicator set basis. The overall goal is to provide the urban planning process with tools for designing livable and inclusive settlements, in line with sustainable development goals