Abstract

Journal of Urban Technology, 2016 Vol. 23, No. 4, 1 – 2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10630732.2016.1257837 This issue of JUT presents articles that look at the tools cities do or could employ to promote rational and comprehensive decision making and community partici- pation in planning and governance. In the first article of the issue, Elena Fregonara and her co-authors, Roberto Giordano, Diana Rolando, and Jean-Marc Tulliani, propose a methodology for “integrating two existing approaches in decision making” regarding the rehabilitation and retrofit of buildings in order to promote environmental sustainability in an economically efficient manner. The authors describe a tool that blends Life-Cycle Assessment and Life-Cycle Costing and then show how the tool was used to very good effect on a public housing unit called Pucini Towers in Turin, Italy. In their paper, “Building a GIS Platform for Sustainable Land Management: A ˇ ˇ Case Study of the City of Cac ˇak, Serbia,” Ljiljana Zivovic ´ and Aleksandar Ðordevic ´ propose an information platform that is built on a Geographic Infor- mation System (GIS) and Spatial Data Information (SDI). Their goal is to build a platform that integrates various planning data (social, economic, environmental) with data regarding government regulations and planning practices.