About the circular city

1. What should be considered when analyzing a city as a circular?

(Cosa si deve considerare quando si analizza una città in quanto città circolare?) ANSWER: The first question that we should clarify is that today on this planet there are not cities that work in a circular way, so this one about the circular city is a theory, is a paradigm that we use to imagine the future of the cities and that cities should try to adapt to it, and to reach this circularity. What should be proposed to the cities, so that they can start to think of circular cities? First of all, we should analyze the condition of the environment and try to understand from which environmental condition that city is starting, from the point of view of air quality, water quality, green quality, and all those elements that could help the

city to become a sustainable city. But this is not enough to be a circular city. For this all the actions that are developed (done) in this city should be actions that do not produce waste. Everyone produces waste, but it is necessary that it is taken to reuse all the waste of one city and to imagine that all the waste is resources.

We should start from the concept that all the waste should become a resource.

A new paradigm is an opposite of what we did until today. This is the way to consider a city as the beginning of an adventure so that it can become a circular city.

2. What kind of development should urban systems have in order to consider the city as circular?

(Quale tipo di sviluppo deve avere un sistema urbano per poter essere considerato città circolare?)

ANSWER: The first answer that I have in my mind is: the city should have a harmonic development. “Sustainable” is an abused word, that lost its original meaning, so we should try to understand which ones are the factors of urban development. Therefore, the system of traffic, the system of living, the models of living, the cultural systems, the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic cities. All these systems should be analyzed so that a city can be considered a circular city. The collection of the systems that compose the urban system. In order to understand where the risks of this action are, we must do a SWOT analysis so that we can understand the economy, society, and environment, which elements characterize that city. Also, the system of water is relevant. The cities are different, so there is not a paradigm for every city and we should consider each city and understand for that city which elements are relevant to have a circular system. One of the main problems is to convince society to operate in a virtuous system, and that they can have benefited from it. If benefits are not on the community, this is a problem from the point of view of the possibility. These actions of circularity are not in the big industrial systems but in each person. They will be careful with all the elements that compose the urban system.

3. According to you, which cities can be a good example of the circular city in Europe or other parts of the world? and which circular development do they have in their cities?

(Secondo lei, quali città possono essere un buon esempio di città circolare in Europa o in altre parti del mondo? E quale sviluppo circolare hanno riportato?)

ANSWER: We go back to the first question. There are not cities that work as circular cities but we can give an example of eco-sustainable neighborhoods, because there are several of them in the world, with different scales and targets.

There are several in North Europe and Arabic countries, where cities were conceived

as sustainable from their project. They are not circular neighborhoods, because the circular economy gives rise to the circular city. In these eco-sustainable neigh-borhoods, most of the attention is given to the building envelope, to the quality of the green, to the energy saving, to avoid water waste. It is needed that a city, in order to be sustainable and circular, should have both conditions. In our work, in fact, we spoke about eco-dynamic cities. For example, green is an element that can change. Eco dynamics is a characteristic that cities should have to be circular.

4. What is your opinion about Turin as a circular city? Nowadays, what point has Turin reached in terms of circular developments?

(Qual è la sua opinione riguardo Torino come città circolare? Attualmente, quale punto ha raggiunto Torino in termini di sviluppo circolare?)

ANSWER: Turin is quite back about this. It is an extraordinary city from the point of view of the image that the city has. But if we analyze the systems, they have some critical points. A simple element related to all the citizens is the city care. As we take care of our home, also we should take care of the city as well.

The second important element is recycling. All the elements should be collected at a high percentage (90% for example). This is the first element of the circular economy. At the same time, companies should behave in the same way. Moreover, the production cycle of companies should be circular. They should take care of where the waste goes, but generally the waste end in dumps, with a high level of danger and low level of purification. So, the cycle should be about all the systems, especially the production. Another element: if Turin wants to be a circular city, we should think about the collection of home appliances, mobile phones, televisions, computers. Practically, they ended their primary function, but they did not end their economic life. All the elements that compose them are very precious. The minerals used to produce them are rare and precious, so we should learn that all these components should be divided into several pieces, and the useful ones should be selected and taken because they are useful. An example from Japan: all the medals in Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are produced by reusing the recycled parts of the goods that I mentioned before (mobiles, televisions, etc. . . ). It is a symbol, we can not change the world like this. But this is a good example of a circular economy. That medal will never have a new life. It will stay there forever. If Turin wants to go in this direction, it should have a department dedicated to the green transition and, mostly, to the formation of a circular economy for the city.

5. What studies in Turin fall into circular development according to you?

(Quali studi a Torino riguardano lo sviluppo circolare, secondo lei?)

ANSWER: I already answered the previous question. As part of our group, we

worked on green and we gave some indications about the environmental system and the city.