Computational Planning Support Systems for Regional Analysis: Real-Estate Values Dynamics and Road-Networks Configuration

Abstract

Computational Planning Support Systems (CPSS), associated with GIS-based instruments diffusion during the late 2000s, have allowed policymakers to better deal with urban areas’ rapid transformations. Still, CPSS often remains oriented to evaluate territories’ physical changes, focusing on socio-environmental perspectives of sustainable development, while considering the economic aspects of this issue as independent and abstract variables. In this regard, economic sustainability is often treated as more dependent on social relations than territorial characteristics, even if spatial analyses have potential to unveil attributes related to urban areas’ overall resilience. Real-estate values are one of such economic variables. Considered as derived from market relations, property values are also influenced by territorial constraints: nearness to central places and road-infrastructure. Such aspects, however, become less evident when regional areas considered. Exploring urban-regional dynamics in a GIS-based environment, this paper assesses productive areas’ real-estate values patterns throughout Tuscany, comparing them with the distribution of centralities hierarchies of the road-circulation network. It is observed that there are regional differences in the road-circulation network centralities distribution that lead to territorial disparities within the region, where preferential routes do not reach certain productive areas in the hinterland, resulting in sparse productive areas with low property values. In this sense, differences in placement and real-estate values may indicate areas that are territorially more exposed due to unfavorable road-network configuration, and those that tend to be more resilient, important prospects to consider in CPSS with respect to long-term economic sustainability.