Beyond the Limits of the City: Strategies to Regenerate Fragile Territories

Implementing sustainable urban policies in fragile contexts that have recently emerged from wars may be challenging due to the complexity of emerging priorities and the fragmentation of policymaking within government structures and hierarchies. This paper starts by examining these issues, focusing not only on brownfield sites but also on the whole city, extending beyond its boundaries. The underlying premise is that planning for a vulnerable and fragile city may initially appear more difficult but may ultimately be converted into a targeted strategic planning approach. The authors will first introduce the concepts of which are the best regeneration strategies for a devastated by-conflict context. Following that, a concise overview is provided on fragility, robustness, and antifragility in relation to complex social systems, with a specific focus on cities. Finally, the authors will analyse the elements that contribute to the vulnerability of cities and propose the use of artificial intelligence, namely digital twins, as a potential solution for reconstructing cities devastated by warfare. The objective is to hypothesise on the feasibility of reconstructing an enhanced urban area using the existing digital city plan as a foundation.