A Strategic Performance-Based Planning Methodology to Promote the Regeneration of Fragile Territories

The paper seeks to investigate if an integrated strategic and performance-based methodological approach can contribute to tackle uncertainty and to overcome the rigid and long-lasting regulation belonging to the prescriptive planning. This approach is based on the multi-scalar dimensions of different decision-making levels; action programs; governance and social involvement. The methodological framework proposed is based on different methodological evaluation tools in order to support an adaptive and inclusive decisional process. The aim of this study is dual. On the one hand, we want to prove how an integrated approach, involving both strategic and performance-based planning methodologies, can incorporate the strengths of both approaches, while complementing their separate weaknesses, toward enhancing the decision-making processes for the sustainable regeneration of territories. On the other hand, we highlight how a flexible, dynamic, adaptive, context-aware, and site-specific decision support system can contribute to the definition of alternative scenarios and lead public authorities to opt for the most performing one in terms of environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The tool implemented was tested for the case study of the regeneration of a naturalist site in Pantelleria, a little island in the south of Italy belonging to a group of fragile territories that were cut off by the main development dynamics and have gradually become marginalized due to depletion of the local economy and demographic decline.