Evaluation of sustainable urban redevelopment scenarios

Abstract

Multi-criteria analysis is often used in planning for evaluating alternative development options against a set of evaluation criteria. In the context of sustainable development, the definition of these criteria is quite controversial because of the complex and fuzzy nature of this emerging topic. Decision making for sustainable (re)development at urban planning level requires an understanding of the multiple issues implied in the problem. The multi-modal framework can help decision makers handle the multiplicity of issues embodied in the concept of urban sustainability by guiding the selection of appropriate criteria for evaluating alternative solutions. This paper applies this framework to an Italian urban (re)development decision-making process by using the analytic network process, a most advanced network version of the analytic hierarchy process. This is the first mathematical theory that makes it possible systematically to deal with all kinds of dependencies and feedback. It requires a network structure to represent the decision problem, as well as pairwise comparison with established relations within the structure. The multi-modal framework is used to structure the case study problem towards a more sustainable solution.