Territorial Integrated Evaluation Methodology

Territorial Integrated Evaluation (TIE), the methodology being proposed and tested here, primarily aims to go beyond a merely one-dimensional approach to the regional planning of retail territorial development. In order to do this, it furnishes planners with information, thus laying more a solid foundation for the planning and design of territorial development scenarios in which the retail policy could play on a convincing role in the enhancement of urban areas. TIE methodology is not meant to take the place of legally mandated assessment procedures, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). Rather, it is meant to be a voluntary act of institutional evaluation to help in decision-making for planning and designing territorial transformation and development. This methodology comes out of the conviction that Italy needs to change its approaches to the evaluation in spatial planning. In other words, evaluation is something that is significant not merely as a technical-scientific procedure subject only to rigid regulations (such as the SEA). Rather, evaluation requires something more than, obviously, a solid supportive foundation in regulations. It requires that there be a thorough administrative and technical capacity to reorganize the practices of the stakeholders who take part in the processes of territorial planning.