The feature of the integrated approach adopted for the “Urban sustainable development” priority axis consists of selecting several primary investments and its relatives actions. It is expected they will be fulfilled simultaneously and by reinforcing each other. The overall aim of such an integrated approach must be to improve the management and control of industrial processes, to ensure a high level of protection for the environment as a whole and for the run-down areas.

It should be noted that this approach, for some interventions, also allows a more efficient and effective use of economic resources invested in retraining. It is clear, in fact, that a building renovation aimed at energy efficiency of a building, if it also provides for the elimination of architectural barriers can achieve at the same time objectives of social inclusion, resulting in savings of public resources compared to the hypothesis of interventions carried out in an uncoordinated manner. Similarly, the construction of green urban infrastructure, helping to reduce the “heat island effect", especially in the climatic horizons of southern Italy, allows to reduce energy consumption in buildings for civil use. It also improves the quality of life of people both in terms of use of green for recreational, sporting and, more generally, socio-cultural uses, both in terms of positive impacts on health, especially of the most vulnerable groups (elderly people, people with chronic diseases, etc.).

In particular, in the Apulian towns, the actions of ecological regeneration are particularly important also because of the delays that they present according to the ISTAT 2011 survey on some environmental data of the capital municipalities. In particular:

• The amount of green areas in relation to the municipal area is lower than the national average, equal to 2.7, for all cities: Trani 0.1, Taranto e Lecce 0.2, Foggia e Brindisi 0,3, Barletta 0,5.
• With the exception of Andria, for all other capital cities the number of protected areas is lower than the national average: 0 Trani, 1.3 Brindisi, 2.0 Foggia, 2. 7 Barletta, 6.8 Lecce, 10 Taranto.
• There are no district heating systems.
• With the exception of Brindisi, which has a percentage of 0.1 kW per 1,000 inhabitants, in all the other cities surveyed until 2011 there were no photovoltaic solar panels installed on municipal buildings.

Some of the characteristics of the suburbs of the Apulian towns, such as the condition of urbanised margin placed in contiguity with the open countryside, the wide availability of abandoned spaces, the lack of services, the oversizing of the road infrastructure, can be transformed from problems into opportunities: all this through projects of ecological regeneration carried out with the participation of the inhabitants and aimed at raising the urban and life quality.

These are some examples of activities to do:

• development of sustainable mobility, possibly in conjunction with measures to improve the quality of public space, to remove or reduce road infrastructure, also with a view to upgrading and securing large urbanised coastal areas and reducing hydrogeological risks (ROP Action 4.4 - Measures to increase sustainable mobility in urban and suburban areas, Programme Agreement 4.6.1, 4.6.4)
• strengthening of infrastructure connections and equipment on a territorial scale (ROP Action 4.4 - Measures to increase sustainable mobility in urban and suburban areas, Programme Agreement 4.6.1, 4.6.4)

These actions will be accompanied by interventions of promotion of the civic participation through the involvement of inhabitants and active citizenship dealing with the planning and management of such interventions.
The ecological regeneration will be led in a way that the environmental renovation will not be confined to the physical conversion of places, but it will affects people behaviour and ways of using and managing also through innovative and technological facilities (in line with the logic of the smart city).

Reference is made in particular to the action, under the ESF, of social animation and collective participation in the reconstruction of the identity of places and communities, related to the functional recovery and reuse of old buildings, including property confiscated from the mafias, financed under the 9.6 line of ROP Puglia (corresponding to action 9. 6. 7 of the Partnership Agreement), for a public amount of EUR 1,5 million.

For the purposes of the demarcation with Axis IX, the actions foreseen for the achievement of RA 9.4 and 9.6 under Axis XII will be financed exclusively within integrated regeneration plans for specific urban areas as defined by the AU. A high level of coordination is therefore foreseen both with the investment priorities of the thematic Objective 9 and with the actions foreseen by the ESF, with particular reference to the activities of social animation and participation of the citizens, as well as to personalized accompanying measures foreseen by specific Local Action Plans, according to the needs of the families and of the target individuals.

The target areas and beneficiaries are the single and/or associated municipalities with a total resident population of more than 15,000 inhabitants, identified on the basis of macro-criteria, concerning the administrative capacity of public administrations, previous policies implemented on the themes of urban regeneration and the sustainability of housing (in implementation of the LR 21 / 2008 e 13 / 2008), social distress, the number of direct /indirect beneficiaries.

The DPRU drawn up in accordance with L.R. 21/2008, which almost all Apulian municipalities have adopted in the last programming period, will be evaluated. The DPRU is a document that analyses urban problems related to the degradation of physical elements and the social and economic marginalization of urban areas. Pursuant to art. 3 of the cited L.R. 21/2008, the DPRU outlines the overall strategy of sustainable development through the definition of objectives of urban regeneration, social inclusion and environmental sustainability to be pursued at municipal or inter-municipal level". The proposed actions should contribute to the achievement of these objectives and to the pursuit of the overall strategy at urban level. Regeneration areas must necessarily be totally or predominantly built-up urban areas.

The implementation of the axis will be carried out through negotiated procedures with the local authorities identified in the target areas. The ability to complement proposed actions with actions funded through other implementation mechanisms will be considered as a reward.

In order to ensure the concentration of investments and their effectiveness, it is planned to finance a number of approximately 25 “complex”  programmes that are necessarily made up of a set of integrated interventions and projects, aimed at the sustainable regeneration of a run-down district, in order to constitute a pilot intervention, for example for similar situations throughout the region.

With reference to the assets confiscated from the mafias, a total of 493 real estate properties under direct management to the National Agency seized and confiscated assets (source ANBSC, March 2015) and 598 assets finally made available to local authorities and administrations (of which 222 in the province of Bari, 180 in Brindisi, 48 in Foggia, 71 in Lecce and 77 in Taranto) have been found in Puglia.