The Innovative Management of Community Space as a Key Strategy to Guide Urban Regeneration Programs: The Experience of the Neighbourhood-Hub Project

The effective use and management of public spaces for socio-cultural activities is a key factor in urban regeneration initiatives. This is one of the most challenging tasks for public administrations due to a range of factors, including securing sufficient funding, defining clear objectives and strategies, effectively managing social aspects and community participation, and ensuring long-term sustainability of these spaces. Traditional models of public space management may no longer be adequate in addressing these complexities. Innovative tools are necessary to simplify procedures and promote greater collaboration between public authorities and citizens. With this in mind, this paper presents the “NeighbourHub Model” (NHub), a novel management model designed to enable digital participation between public administrators and socio-cultural associations, improving the alignment between the supply and demand of community spaces by promoting temporary and rotational use of spaces. NHub prioritizes transparency, accessibility, and accountability, which are key principles for public administrators to follow when assigning public spaces. We describe a case study that investigated the applicability and utility of NHub in two social housing neighbourhoods in Cagliari (Italy) that are characterized by a significant number of underused and abandoned public spaces and of social and cultural associations that are deeply embedded in local communities. Our findings demonstrate that the model allows, on one hand, to enhance the knowledge of the heritage by increasing its utilization capacity, and on the other hand, to improve the capacity of action of the community. NHub, in fact, provides a tool to negotiate potential conflicts and facilitate participatory decision-making among stakeholders, supporting the governance of urban commons.