Cagliari: contesto locale e metropolitana leggera - Cagliari: local context and a metropolitan railway project

The definition and implementation of planning policies should be based on a wide and progressive involvement of the local communities, which can generate a dynamic organization of the territory of the city mostly consistent with their behavioral attitudes, needs, and expectations. Based on these conceptual assumptions, this essay discusses a case study of consensus assessment on a metropolitan railway project in the urban area of Cagliari, Italy, by means of a contingent valuation (CV) methodology, named dichotomous choice with follow-Up Method (DCFU). The goal of this CV-based assessment is to evaluate a priori the supposed effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of the railway project, assuming the degree of informed consensus (or disagreement) of the local civic community as a performance measure. Through DCFU it is also possible to evaluate the role of the quality of information on public consensus, that is the role of the involvement and participation of the local civic community to the definition and implementation of the planning process. DCFU is a typically direct methodology that allows us, on the one side, to evaluate the degree of consensus on a public planning policy, and, on the other side, to enhance the quantity and quality of the information of the local civic community. Participation, interest, information, and consensus, are undoubtedly deeply connected to one another in the perspective of open planning forms-processes, which may produce outcomes that show consistency between general objectives and the expectations of the local communities concerning the spatial organization of the territory of the city.