"From Impact Assessment to Territorial Integrated Evaluation in Spatial Planning: a Methodological Proposal for New Reatail Settlements"

New retail settlements have recently developed in Italy, on account of different pressures such as the changes in the consumers’ behaviour, the interest of major investors driven by the stability of the new European currency, and lastly the entrance of important foreign developers who have introduced new retail formats characterised by very large catchment’s areas. These emerging settlements, associated with new models of spatial organization, represent an interesting case of a global economic development strategy affecting local territorial development. In fact, these new retail polarities produce a plurality of direct and indirect territorial effects on the local context which could mean new challenges for local development. This paper considers the role of the territorial evaluation of the effects due to the retail settlements and promotes the introduction of innovations in the decision making process on the retailing regional policies in the Italian planning system. With particular focus on the results of the research programme coordinated from 2004 to 2006 for the Piedmont Department of Retailing, the aim of the paper is to discuss a methodological proposal of Territorial integrated evaluation (TIE) to implement the evaluation and the monitoring on the direct and indirect effects of the retail settlements. In this perspective the paper discuss the following topics: i.the role of the TIE methodology to improve the integration between the retail regional policies and the local territorial planning; ii.the relevance of analysing different kinds of effects – direct and indirect – to implement institutional innovations in the regional and local policies; iii.the ‘tools’ of TIE methodology; iv.the TIE methodology as a tool for supporting an institutional learning process; v.the role of the TIE in the strategic spatial policies.