Areas of considerable public interest, territorial common goods and ecosystem services: an application case for the city of Cagliari

The areas of considerable public interest (Decreto legislativo 42/2004, Article 136), as a spatial representation of landscape protection, are not circumscribable to a category of immediate identification in an applicative manner. They are affected not only by acknowledged, interpretative and representative inhomogeneities, but also management and operational ones. Against this background, territorial common goods are a topic of debate and the object of numerous interpretations that make it a whole from indefinite boundaries. This research is aimed to summarize all the different definitions and applications on the areas of considerable public interest and on the territorial common goods which are devoid of consolidated and recognized identification and execution practices and, therefore, need some forms of governance and management. An operational framework allows the definition of public policies in the field of urban common goods, starting from the identification of operational requirements and relatives criteria and indicators. On the one hand, this is a cause for reflection on the concept of “considerable public interest”, on the other hand, it highlights a useful path for governance or management through the identification, representation and evaluation of potential public spaces to be involved and connect, intended as territorial common goods. In this sense, they play an essential role as a connective space for ecosystem services supply and driver for converting the character of marginal areas and improve their living condition. To illustrate this, a recent experience is presented here, concerning the potential of the connective spaces in the urban renewal in a peripheral neighborhood of Cagliari, Italy.