CLUDs – Second International Workshop

San Diego State University, San Diego, CA (USA) 11-12 June 2013

Sustainable Urban Development. The role of urban rural regeneration in regional context

The Second International Workshop “Sustainable Urban Development: The role of urban rural regeneration in regional context” was part of the activities planned by the research Cluds.
The event, organized in collaboration with the San Diego State University, was held in San Diego, CA, on 11th and 12th June 2013. The workshop pursued the objective to summarize the activities carried out during the Working Package No.2 Research Cluds.
In particular, the purpose of the event were related to the successful factorsin the urban regeneration interventions in the United States and in a specific manner in the area of San Diego, with reference to two specific aspects:

1. The Community-led approach “: in this case urban regeneration initiatives were analyzed with respect to their ability to generate benefits to meet the needs of local communities.
2. The Urban-Rural Connection: as a means of contributing to the definition of usable tools for urban regeneration.

The workshop pursued the objective to summarize the activities carried out during the Working Package No.2 Research Cluds. The CLUDs project has introduced the concept of “milieu” to offer a different source of sustainability within urban regeneration initiatives, that is the connections with the surrounding rural areas to reinforce local economy. Among different contributions in literature about the meaning of milieu, the more suitable explanation, according to the CLUDs project, is the following: “a set of potential expressed by a particular territory that should be recognized and captured by the organization of local actors in order to be exploited as sources of local development”.

The main feature of the milieu is the capability to relate physical resources with local actors, by covering three dimensional aspects: the individual (value attitudes, life-style, actions, perceptions); the level of the district/neighborhood (locality); and the level of the network. Connected to this general meaning, some specifications arise from the new economy or new economic geography implications, especially with respect the GREMI (Groupe de Recherches Européensur les Milieux Innovateurs) model.