Gal Amedi (p)

In urban models, accessibility is a key factor in the utility from living in different areas and is internalized by the residential market, creating an 'accessibility premium'. Previous case-study literature found significant and largely unexplained variation in the transit accessibility premium in different urban contexts. This paper proposes a new approach to uncovering the determinants of this variation in a unified framework.
High density of potential users and mixed-use zoning imply a larger transit accessibility premium. The premium is higher in areas with a low level of transit services compared to a reasonable reference point, and positive only up to a threshold level of services. There is some evidence that proximity to rail systems implies a premium over and above the expected premium implied by a reduction in travel times alone.

Giacomo Rosso (p)

This paper investigates the impact of real estate prices on local economic activities within
cities. It combines a novel geo-located dataset of retailers and services with information on
the sale and rental prices and develops an empirical strategy based on IV panel techniques to
address endogeneity concerns. The instrument adopted is unconventional, i.e the city heating
district system. The results indicate that prices affect positively the variety of products and services
offered in an area, and negatively the tradable and non-tradable sectors. However, price
changes induced by demographic or gentrification patterns lead to a remarkable positive effect
on all sectors and the variety supplied in an area. The findings highlight the role of neighborhood
change in reshaping cities.

Pietro Bova (p)

This contribution presents a visual methodology of Participatory Action Research (PAR) called "Photovoice" (C. Wang & Burris, 1997; C.C. Wang, 2006) - the use of this methodology is reported in literature for community engagement and social innovation, especially in developing or left-behind regions (Adams et al., 2017; Bova, 2022; Derr & Simons, 2020; Fantini, 2017; Trout et al., 2019) - in which artificial intelligence imaging tools are integrated into the process towards sustainable co-design.

Development processes are highly complex and dependent on contextualized situations. The multidisciplinary approach allowed by such PAR methodologies - linked to innovative tools and open data - theoretically improves community engagement, facilitates bottom-up governance and decision-making processes. Finally, this contribution aims to present the testing of this particular visual methodology called “photovoice” using innovative tools based on artificial intelligenze. Appropriately adapted, for stress testing, the methodology was combined with the use of recent tools: the firtst tool is based on open data, the web platform “Monithon”; the other one is “Midjourney”, an AI-based imaging tool that have become partially open.

The results of the application of the methodology in two case studies in Italy will be presented and compared. Both applications of Photovoice are integrated into educational pathways for schools that have facilitated the engagement of young students residing in the areas (of the case studies themselves). The first application took place in the Grecanica area of Reggio Calabria – a left behind and low-density area – where the use of the method allowed the students to produce a civic monitoring report on the spending of European funds, using the open-web-platform "Monithon" (Monithon - Civic monitoring marathon of public policies, 2021). The second application of the method involved about 20 students from the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria using the method to describe urban issues as perceived and experienced by them. Finally, focus groups produced textual "prompts" for the generation of images useful for proposing solutions about the regeneration of places in a sustainable way. Lastly, for this second application, the prompts were used within "Midjourbey" (Midjourney, 2022): a chatbot that communicates with an artificial intelligence whose task is to produce images that are as faithful as possible to the textual description provided.