Urban Energy Resilience and Strategic Urban Planning in Emilia-Romagna: Evidence from Three Cities

Contemporary cities are facing many challenges, from social and economic issues to the new risks related to the impacts of climate change. Focusing on energy consumptions, and the related GHG emissions, cities are considered not only the main global contributors but also the areas most exposed to risks, because of their density of population, functions and economic activities. Implementing urban planning strategies with the purpose of increasing energy efficiency and resilience overall are, for all these reasons, considered a top priority. This paper investigates the innovative contents about energy-efficient and energy-resilient urban planning solutions that have started to be implement in the cities of the Emilia-Romagna region. Two kinds of planning instruments are therefore analyzed: the voluntary Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) and the mandatory local city plans, recently approved in several cities of Emilia-Romagna. A comparative analysis of three cities in the Emilia-Romagna region, Bologna, Modena and Ravenna, is proposed on the strategies of their newly local city plans and SECAPs with focus on the topics of energy management and planning. The aim is to assess whether the new structure of local city plans and the influence of SECAPs could be useful in implementing such urban energy resiliency solutions.