Ontologies for urban regeneration could be useful for managing cohesion policies?

Abstract

This paper describes the building of an urban regeneration ontology for managing cohesion policies focused on revitalizing cities. After a discussion of the background of the ontology subject, and about the experience in which the prototype of an ontology for urban regeneration has been developed, first user needs and requirements for ontology specification are described starting from this prototype. The prototype has been developed in the "Towntology software", by the LIRIS Laboratory at the University of Lyon (France). It has been tested in the Italian Apulia Region offices for Spatial planning and Environmental Management; as described in the paragraph "OUR first training". The test has shown interesting address and suggestions for user needs and requirements that are discussed in the paragraph "OUR suggestions". The reported experience is not over, hence not all what can be said has been written or observed, but these first results are useful to trace possible future perspectives for research. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.