Financial sustainability and morphogenesis of urban transformation project

Abstract

The urban transformation projects are very complex and have to be examined from several points of view (socio-cultural, environmental, infrastructural, administrative, and economic-financial) to determine their sustainability. This study aims to test the financial analysis as a tool for outlining the morphogenesis of the project’s characteristics and exploring the frontiers of the financial feasibility especially when the urban projects, according to Italian laws, involve Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). A financial model is applied to a case study (the transformation of an abandoned railway area) in which the absence of an adequate returns on investment, because of the crisis of the real estate market, requires one to iteratively modify the project’s characteristics and define various alternative scenarios for obtaining the project’s form that achieves the financial feasibility.