EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - “Urban Herculaneum”: regeneration of the Ercolano city centre

“Urban Herculaneum”: regeneration of the Ercolano city centre - Ercolano, IT

Introduction

The project aims at enhancing the economic readjustment and the community sense of sharing the area concerned. The project focuses on the development of physical, economic and environmental resources by applying the innovative concept of “active protection”, which implies a local common sense of welfare.

Problem

The first weakness and fail factor preventing the development of Ercolano is the presence of infrastructure splitting the city into longitudinal and separated subareas. Moreover, the city is affected by socio-economic problems, mainly due to a scarce development of the territory’s strengths and opportunities. In particular, the city is affected by:

high unemployment rate (affecting in particular young people) and illegal employment
great number of crafts and small enterprises and few relevant medium enterprises that had difficulty to adequately compete within a global economy context
low level of social sense of belonging
strong presence of organised crime
lack of networking capability
unexploited resources for the tourism.

Description

The “Urban Herculaneum” project covers the central urban area of Ercolano city and it is geographically concentrated on two areas: via IV November and Corso Resina, two of the main roads of the city. The purpose of the project is to develop a new spatial perspective. This because the city’s urban growth was deeply affected by the presence of longitudinal transport networks located in the neighbouring areas, which created a gap within the city, its archaeological site and the main transport networks. The project aims at improving the cultural and historic heritage accessibility, the development of sustainable public means of transport and the renewal of public spaces.

Approach

The “Urban Herculaneum” project’s approach is based on:

the urban and environmental regeneration through the creation of multidimensional infrastructure, rehabilitation of squares and streets, restoration of the town centre, improvement of the transport system
the promotion of cultural resources (e.g. construction of cultural centres and of a School of Archaeology)
the improvement of socio-economic conditions through incentives for crafts and business
the improvement of sustainable tourism opportunities
the improvement of security.

The project strategy is based on the concept that the territory is a resource to exploit and, therefore, the cultural resources have to be enhanced to improve and diversify the tourism sector within a sustainable view. The approach, based on complementary and integrated actions, allows to tackle problems affecting the area in a strategic and long term perspective through a proactive involvement of socio-economic parties.

Results

The urban planning project was extremely important to enhance the living standards of the area. Some of the key results are:

the rehabilitation and re-planning of Pugliano Square
the creation of CIVES (Integrated Centre for the Enhancement of Ercolano and the Excavations)
the trolleybus renovation
the “International Studies Centre of Herculaneum”, a school that will train young scholars from all over the world in restoring and conserving archaeological finds
the “Resina Tipica” Operational Centre, aimed at supporting the business sector, including crafts.

In addition, partnerships and networks created during the project implementation helped to reach important results. A horizontal objective consisted of strengthening the citizens’ sense of belonging and stimulating the bottom-up approach. Thus, particular attention was paid to the communication campaign.

Beneficiaries

The final beneficiary of the intervention is the City of Ercolano but the programme involves all the citizens of the area and, in particular, students and enterprises. Students benefited from the construction of the CIVES and of the “International Studies Centre of Herculaneum”. Enterprises, including those operating in the craft field, grew thanks to the “Resina Tipica” Operational Centre, training courses and other incentives.

Resources used

The total amount of funding is 40.7 million euros of which 32.2 million euros are devoted to infrastructural actions and 8.5 million euros to immaterial actions.

The costs are divided as follows:
National portion: 5 million euros (12.4 percent)
Regional portion: 18.8 million euros (46.1 percent)
Municipal portion: 12.9 million euros (31.6 percent)
Other public bodies: 3.3 million euros (1.6 percent)
Private partners portion: 647,000 euros (8.2 percent).

Contact info

City of Ercolano
Mr. Massimo Iovino

Project start date

07/08/2003

Links

Ministry for Infrastructure (in Italian)Urban Italia Programme (in Italian)City of Ercolano (in Italian)Ercolano Programme (in Italian)

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Community development

Keywords

Citizens' participation

Institutional characteristics
Private Sector