Author(s)

PAOLA CLERICI MAESTOSI, MICHELA PIRRO

Abstract

Diverging from convention requires new methodologies like transition management, designed to navigate inertia in societal contexts. Instead of incrementally improving persistent issues, transition management fosters transformative change through a compelling narrative, critical mass and legitimising analysis. It anticipates, accelerates and guides emerging changes for desired outcomes, focusing on four dimensions: strategic/orienting, tactical/agenda-setting, operational/activating, and reflexive/reflecting. These principles underpin transition management’s influence on change, facilitating problem structuring, coalition-building, stakeholder mobilisation, and continuous learning. The transition arena functions as a hub to coordinate four key activities, fostering radical shifts in thinking and action. Its primary goal is to provide direction, spur local change and empower communities. This facilitates collective learning, enhancing participants’ capacity for self-organisation. Drawing on experience inspired by DRIFT’s transition arenas which has been experimented in and Urban Innovative Actions project, namely DARE, in Ravenna, this paper explores how transition management has been implemented and customised in the case study, focusing on participatory visioning and experimentation to drive to an effective urban sustainability transition. The DARE project courageously pursues innovative solutions to improve regional quality of life focusing on how digital transition can support the process. Addressing key questions, it fosters dialogue, supports idea evolution, ensures project-political coherence, constructs stakeholder narratives and aids local economies through regeneration. Utilising digital tools and citizen engagement, DARE experiments with urban regeneration in Ravenna’s Darsena, employing enabling activities and pilot actions.

Keywords

urban regeneration, transition management, urban sustainability transition