Evaluating Outwards Regeneration Effects (OREs) in Neighborhood-Based Projects: A Reversal of Perspective and the Proposal for a New Tool

This paper proposes a reversal of perspective in the evaluation of Regeneration projects. Until now, attention has been mainly focused on project “internal effectiveness”, in reference to the environment and life quality improvement of the areas directly affected by the interventions. The effects induced in the wider urban context are rarely sufficiently analyzed. This aspect instead opens an important field of investigation, useful for a broader assessment of regeneration initiatives, especially with regards to Public Housing Neighborhoods where the long-term project success also depends on the positive effects it generates in the surroundings. Therefore, the aim of this research is to develop a conceptualization of “Outwards Regeneration Effects” (OREs), based on an extensive literature review, and to make it operational through a conceptual framework for the qualitative analysis. The results of this study, on the one hand, highlight several critical issues raised by the interventions implemented so far, and, on the other hand, provide a more effective assessment framework, useful in the evaluation of future projects. Further developments of such an approach could lead to the development of operational evaluation models, combining both qualitative and quantitative indicators, starting from the implementation of the proposed analytic framework.