The Urban Park as a "Social Island". The ANP in the Participatory Project of Parco Uditore in Palermo

An urban park provides many environmental and recreational facilities and services, and moreover it may become a catalyst for social energies and an instrument of community identification. This paper analyses whether participation and bottom-up planning may compensate institutional absences in implementation of urban parks, and how multiple criteria model may support socially shared decisions about their management. These issues are examined from the singular case of Parco Uditore in Palermo (Italy) that is located in a land which has been surprisingly undeveloped, despite the expansion of the city. The phases of promotion, planning and implementation of the park were the result of a synergistic but spontaneous collaboration of multiple actors, whereas an Analytic Network Process model has been built in the current management phase. The model has been provided for supporting a structured participatory process between promoters-managers and users for the selection of the best project among several alternatives, in order to strengthen the environmental, recreational and social role of the park.