This contribution lies in the intertwining of two areas of the territory and urban planning’s studies: on the one hand, the research on “peri-urban spaces” (or "fringe areas"), on the other hand, the reflections on “specialized peripheral settlements” of activities, often indicated in literature in various ways such as “functional poles”, “specialized clusters”, “citadels”. It is possible to observe how peri-urban areas have often been investigated focusing on the open space, and permanence of natural and rural elements, tackling instead in a less systematic way the presence of important specialized activities (with an economic role and catalyst for intangible flows, goods, and people): logistics and infrastructural spaces, entertainment and large commercial activities, up to campuses and tertiary services. The contribution aims to focus on specialized peri-urban areas and “functional poles” (as these are specifically named in this specific context), observing how they were conceived by the planning tools and Plans, using as profitable field the case of Bologna Metropolitan City, in the north of Italy. The territory under investigation is the northern part of this metropolitan area: an urban-rural sector that opens up to the agricultural plain of Padana Valley but that is also characterized by the presence of important specialized settlements (the fair pavilions, commercial spaces, the university campus and the regional airport). In the first part (I), the paper's aim is to highlight the principles of cluster’s planning and design within wider metropolitan strategies, but also to reflect on the results of planning tools and their current conditions. In the second part (II), the contribution enters into the details of some specific “planning agreements” (in Italian: “Accordi di Programma”), recently redefined by the Metropolitan City, as the result of consultations between local Authorities, Public Entities and Private operators. The contribution is directly inspired by a research collaboration developed by the author with the Metropolitan City of Bologna for the definition of new guidelines for the metropolitan functional poles' agreements. In that experience, the Local Authority tried to introduce new themes for their definition. In addition to more traditional elements (public accessibility, charges and endowments), there were new challenges related to habitability, regeneration and spatial and functional articulations, through actions such as encouraging forms of sustainable mobility, journeys and connections with the territory, qualification of open spaces, environmental comfort etc. Downstream of the definition of the new agreements, the paper wants to observe if it was possible for the Administration to introduce these new themes and in what form they are present, both at a strategic and planning level and as elements of consultation with private subjects.

Security is one of the basic existential needs of man. In one negative definition, security is defined as a feeling of absence of danger. In a positive approach, we can define the feeling of security as certainty of existence, survival and development. Security is of a complex nature and, apart from providing physical protection against direct threats, also includes meeting many specific behavioral needs, including the emotional and social sphere, defined by the needs of belonging to a family, social group and psychological and physical sphere - attachment to the place and the environment, the need to have and identify the living space used. In many cities, security experts develop strategies by analyzing urban planning and architecture and their resilience in terms of adaptability to changing climatic, social and economic conditions. Public places are urban spaces with high city-forming potential, encouraging direct social contacts, significant for social integration and local identity, but also with an increased security risk. In order to ensure safety, the way cities function is to be moderated, they should be equipped with additional devices monitoring sensitive objects and open spaces. There is a wide range of highly advanced products (GiS tools, gps, e-maps ...) available that can form the basis for the further development of specific plans and projects for managing urban ecosystems, with different scopes of activity and covering various areas of life and knowledge. Architecture and urban planning are playing an important role in creating safe urban structures and spaces. Proper shaping of clear urban spaces is essential to building social bonds, to deepen the sense of bond with the environment and prevents the creation of a sense of danger. Elements of spatial development have a huge impact on social behavior. Striving for human interaction and social contacts in the surrounding spaces is a basic behavioral feature, and the ability to control and freely shape spatial distances and delineate boundaries and barriers are elements that build a sense of security. Creating barriers and partitions has a dual effect, on the one hand, it increases the sense of security, and on the other it limits mobility, social interaction, and generates hostility. Minimizing barriers gives the possibility of unrestricted movement, but increases accidental social contacts and incidents. With current threats, of unpredictable scale and scope, ensuring flexibility of solutions to increase security, the possibility of their rapid modification seems to be a necessity. "Urban security" measures should be a permanent component of the 'Smart Cities' strategies possible to implement both in the behavioral spheres of residents, the private space of individual objects and their surroundings, as well as in urban public spaces, providing the opportunity for communication and free movement, staying or using areas greens in safety conditions. Nowadays, there is an urgent need to take both preventive actions and actions aimed at alleviating the consequences arising from the occurrence of various types of violent events, progressive processes of adverse climate change and natural disasters. According to the scale of these threats, all settlement units should have operational strategies, instruments and secured appropriate financial resources to be able to provide flexible, quick and effective response to occurring events threatening the safety of residents - providing, above all, the basic living conditions: food, clean water and air as well as proper shelter. New information technologies open up a number of possibilities for using e-planning tools to directly support residents, enterprises and regions, as well as to transform the economy into a more environmentally friendly one, supporting innovation that ensures both greater efficiency and security.

Alleyways play a vital role in urban life. It is a public space, it cannot be called a road, but it can still be used as a corridor for pedestrians to pass. Alleys usually dominate the urban structure; recent research by Gehl Architects stated that more than half of urban space is usually alleys. Therefore, Alleys have the potential to increase the number of public space in the city. Gehl's research also stated that activating alleyways as public space will result in 50% public space addition in the city. Activating alleyways had been done successfully in cities in developed countries. For example, in European cities such as Paris, Rome, and Barcelona, beautiful alley serves as a vital pedestrian passageway. In Japan and Australia, alleyways serve as retail hubs. They had successfully activated the alley as a place for the community. What is interesting about the alley is that the alley provides great opportunities to walk through in a human-scaled dimension, so that they offer something a little more intimate. Many cities are trying to activate alleys and make them human-scale places, sometimes provided with cafes, retail, and street art. US Cities are activating alleys for social events as well as making a beautification, especially outdoor arts. However, in Indonesian cities, such efforts have not been done much. Alleyways are always considered the backyard of the city and tend to be neglected space. Therefore it is necessary for city leaders in Indonesia to rethinking their alleyways. In the case of Bogor City, which also has a considerable number of alleys, the alleys are generally in an uncomfortable, dark, smelly condition, used by homeless people, many illegal stalls and dwellings; it becomes a forgotten urban space. Bogor Mayor innovated by starting to reactivate the alleyways as public spaces. Efforts made are through a human-scale intervention to make the city more human friendly. With so many potential culinary street vendors in the city, the alley is suggested to become a culinary corridor to enable urban life in the alleys. The alleyways will be one of the essential assets in the city, as well as an asset for pedestrians, which serve not only as a passage-way but also a sought-after place. This paper presents one of the alley revitalization projects in Bogor City, located in Chinatown. These alleys are spaces between two shophouses, with 80-100 meters long. These alleyways function as passing through, which connects two main roads in the Chinatown District. This project was carried out in 7 corridors. The planning and design process was conducted in 2019 and will soon enter the construction phase. Initially, the government planned to carry out the construction in mid-2020, but due to COVID-19, the construction project had to be postponed. The author acted as a design consultant on this project, assisting the government and mayor in the design process. The design results show that the alley will function as new public spaces for people. Through human-scale intervention, beautification, street arts, lighting, turning the alleys into park corridors, and a place for culinary streets, the corridor can be more vibrant. Although it has not yet been constructed, the response of various stakeholders to the design results is quite positive, and they feel confident that this alley will become a thriving new public space. It can be learned from this project that small scale interventions in public space could have a significant impact on the city. It is more than merely a beautification, but providing places for people, towards a human-friendly city.

"A sustainable city requires the highest quality space in its central part, one based on historical identity and multifunctional structure ..." – this is the thesis derived from the so-called Lodz Charter, adopted at the 5th Urban Planning Congress, which was held in Lodz in 2015. It was the starting point for revolutionary thinking about transforming the second-largest Polish city, the post-industrial city of Lodz, which after the period of the communist stagnation is currently implementing extensive changes in its spatial structure. An example of the changes taking place in the historical part of the city is the area of a certain district with a 19th-century pedigree, located in the heart of Lodz, in the direct neighborhood of the main axis of the city - Piotrkowska Street. The Old Polesie District, sometimes called -- as a result of the ongoing transformations -- "Green Polesie", is now a field of activity of municipal authorities, inspired by the ideas of urban planners and community workers. The area where the transformation program is implemented is currently characterized by the processes of depopulation and spatial degradation. This area has a unique, compact urban layout but its historic buildings require immediate intervention and investment. The urban program "Zielone Polesie" balances the preservation of the historical urban layout with the need to adapt it to the contemporary needs of its inhabitants. The goal is to transform the compact, historical structure of the city into a place characterized by high quality of living and a high degree of greening. The program assumes an increase in green areas by 628%. This is in line with the slogan "return to the city", which indicates the direction of necessary urban transformations in Lodz. The implementation of the investments included in the program is based on the adopted local law, i.e. local spatial development plans. They constitute the executive tool of the program for the implementation of street-gardens and small but numerous parks called "pocket parks". Plans are also the basis for transforming unused plots into public green areas, for clearing up urban quarters and introducing a new communication network for pedestrians. The program and development plans assume the balancing of investments carried out by private developers with public investments and the improvement of the quality of space. These activities are also part of the reserve rationalization process, i.e. the development of municipal investments intended for residents. The implementation of the tasks resulting from the "Green Polesie" program is already visible in the structure of the district and is very positively evaluated by the residents. New mini-parks, woonerfs and pedestrian routes within downtown quarters have already been completed. This part of the city is consistently changing to a place where space is better used and where the quality of life improves. This affects investment interest, increases the number of buildings under construction and draws the attention of the potential new residents. Lodz implements the slogans of "returning to the center" and "eco-city" by changing the quality of living in its historical downtown.

This paper aims at recognizing the effects of social exclusion and the degradation process of public spaces and heritage environments in Spanish touristic destinations of Seville and Malaga. While it cannot be argued that after a lock-down as the experimented one, everything can return to the previous state, especially in environments where resilience has not been considered a value, in the early post-COVID lockdown days the mayors of these Andalusian cities reaffirmed the need to support the tourism sector as the only way to recover the economic breakout. We discuss the transformations that touristification and COVID-19 are driving into these cities, looking at the relaxed action of control and inspection on tourism activities and the offer of public “singular spaces” in the centre of the city for new activities related with the tourism industry and real estate speculation. Other European experiences are presented, showing that more focused measures on liveability and neighbour-centred recovery of urban life are possible.

Traditional planning deals with the nature of environmental decision-making but fails to formulate an overview of how the city changes. It is important to understand the effects of changes in scale, - the rate of growth and its speed - rather than pursuing the search for the optimal size of the city. The New Urban Agenda discussed the performance dimensions of the contemporary city environment knowing that the quality of place derives from joint effect with the society that uses it. How can the performance dimensions of a city be measured? _The effort is to find the value of metropolitan form that gives meaning to metropolitan projects. We define 4 dimensions: physical, economic, energy, social and governance to define the ethical axis that should guide the decision making of metropolitan projects and the assessment of their impact on a fragile and scarce territory. Therefore, the mutation of the heritage of the past is decisive for the realization of the metropolitan centralities, which establish another functioning, bringing to life the interweaving of past and present times passing from metropolitan, to city, and neighborhood scale. Rule and Model_ Metropolitan Paradigm (Ortiz) is the reference to measure the metropolis performance, otherwise, the quality-rules of a metropolis become indeterminate because every city-model is based on certain constants of the biological and cultural structure of territory and inhabitants. It is a paradigm of inter-scalar connection rather than an ordered sequence of spaces: Paradigm (which places its centralities) and Characteristic Figures (a way of qualifying the centralities to make them attractive with respect to the different Actors of the city). Metropolitan Architecture project_ Heterotopias (Shane) are hybrid architectural entities articulating scales (Fenton), urban-morphotypes (d'Alfonso) determining original configurations, new built form types (Simmonds). They are the foundation of mental maps at the metropolitan scale. As metropolitan fabric emerges the formation of a "body-space” (Shane). According to Rowe's reversal-code, open space is reversed from the background to the figure that works for the construction of a mental map of the void at the metropolitan scale. Its formal paradigm structured by eco-armatures (Goveurneur) allows the recognition of a conventional form and provides the potential for a system of gradation of public, semi-public, common and private spaces within a functional logic, allowing new architectural sign to express the value content of a society and its culture. The metropolitan architecture project’s form, - a function of creative and managerial moment -, allows the continuity of green-grey infrastructures through the built space and a gradient of privacy from public, to common to private. The city is still analyzed as a spatial phenomenon, being represented by data/quantities that are related to space. But the value of form plays a fundamental role within the metropolitan discipline at all scales, as spatial relationships within metropolitan settlements are increasingly not metric, but relational. Conclusions_ We identify "the nature of the connection that can exist between heterogeneous elements" (Shane) and the model to represent metropolitan quality-living related values, analyzing the settlement at the local scale that "requires a central master planner, planning agency for emergent systems, creating New Geography and new reading devices”. Maps for new territories, to reveal their quality and to recover their weaknesses. We have developed a tool that consists of a Glossary and open-source-spatialized-data maps Platform to connect the quantitative data with key quality concepts. We study physical reality and its impact on the lives of metropolitan inhabitants, socio-economic flows and the meaning of the concept of "environment" today; concepts too much entangled in the perspective of globalized and capitalist development.