Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
class a model representing at its best the features of the group to which it belongs
(benchmark model).
From the point of view of quality of the urban environment (including man-
agement of building heritage, the waste handling and the cycle of water), the study
puts into evidence how some southern cities in the Puglia region (Foggia, Andria,
Barletta and Lecce) are among the first places. As far as quality of living and
especially mobility is concerned, a clear geographic diversity emerges: all the
northern or centre Italy cities are in the highest rankings, while the southern cities
show a very low position in the overall ranking. Milan, with its optimum per-
formance, is only behind Bergamo. Going to renewable energy use (cluster energy
cities) Forlì, Trento and Ravenna have the highest positions. More in general,
again, the cities in northern Italy show improved performances as compared to the
Southern cities. Positive exceptions in the South can again be found in the region
Puglia, especially Foggia and Lecce. In the clusters identified by the study Sie-
mens-Cittalia, Reggio Emilia is the benchmark city for the urban environment.
The relevant cluster, composed of 17 cities all at the Center-North of Italy (except
Sassari in Sardinia), has gathered cities that differ from the others in terms of entity
of the investments for territorial management and production of energy from
renewable sources. Among the welfare cities Cagliari emerges in a group that puts
together, among the others, important coastal cities (Bari, Genoa, and Naples),
showing an important building heritage and an health care system that attract
people from all over the country. In the cluster of ideal cities, where the quality of
living for citizens is outstanding, Trento emerges among the centre-northern cities
(Bergamo, Brescia, Padova and Trento); while in the cluster of quality of living
and mobility Venice is the leading reality in a group that collects, except from
Bolzano, almost all the large cities in Italy (Bologna, Firenze, Milano, Roma,
Torino). Below average in most aspects are mostly southern cities and in particular
10 cities: Palermo, Messina, Catania, Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Barletta and
Pescara, but also other cities located in the centre and in the north like Pistoia, La
Spezia and Trieste. Nonetheless the latter cities are described as having a strong
potential for improvement, such as Pescara, especially in terms of health and
environment.
Finally, the 8 cities belonging to the cluster energy are quite good in terms of
clean Energy production systems but show values below the average for most of
the other indicators. The best performance in this cluster are provided by the city
of Lecce, benchmark city for this group in which also other cities from the Puglia
region can be found (Andria, Foggia, Lecce and Taranto), from Sicily (Siracusa)
and from the centre of Italy (Arezzo, Terni and Latina). The just seen approaches
for smart cities analysis at European level and at Italian level are very different due
to the different in-depth analysis carried out. The different width of the scenario,
Europe in one case and the Italian country in the other, and the different times in
which the studies have been carried out produce very different results. The
European study carried out in 2007 on 70 small cities, hosting a high level edu-
cation centre, could make use of limited previous studies on the topic while the
Italian study (completed in 2012) has been based on larger competences acquired
