SUSTAINABILITY AND DEMOCRACY IN SPATIAL PLANNING: THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN PORT CITY OF BRINDISI

Our work is concerned with reconstructing the links between democracy and the environment, by targeting urban governance and tapping into the institutional practices of Urban Planning and Environmental Evaluation. Among institutional evaluation processes, Strategic Environmental Assessment is a major policy tool, and its interplay with planning unravels key issues in both urban governance and environmental democracy, including coping with fundamental risks, voicing nonhuman agents, managing commons and addressing environmental justice. Participation often languishes in institutional arenas, yet it thrives in other forms that affect decision-making. Negotiation around individual planning processes should be framed in the general governance arrangements that are constantly reshaped. In mainstreaming new policy tools (such as SEA), procedural aspects are usually stressed, How can evaluation be developed to support the process? We point to some key references with the aim of opening up the discussion, by taking for example the case of Industrial Port Cities in Southern Italy.