A Methodological Proposal to Assess Proximity in Functional Urban Areas

The growing awareness in the European context of the crucial role of sustainable mobility, energy efficiency and the reduction of air pollution, within the framework of the objectives of the 2030 agenda, highlights the need for gradual changes in lifestyle to achieve these goals of communities. In particular, the pandemic and the recent energy crisis, in fact, have further highlighted the need to develop integrated systems (geography/land use - transport/mobility - telecommunications/digitalisation) capable of renewing urban planning oriented towards quality of life, associated with spatial proximity. In this synthetic framework, the main objective of the manuscript is to develop a methodological approach for the construction of a proximity index based on FUAs Functional Urban Area (Copernicus project, with remotely sensed satellite data). The Functional Urban Area Proximity Index (FUAPI) considers the spatial distribution of the residential local community and the density of FUAs, with the aim of supporting the updating of urban planning, both to develop ex-ante scenarios, the decision-making process and to the localization and/or strengthening of highly attractive urban services (stadium in particular).