The cities of today present requirements that are dissimilar to those of the past. There are cities where the industrial and service sectors are in decline, and there are other cities that are just beginning their journey into the technological and industrial sectors. In general, the political and social realms have been restructured in terms of economics, which has resulted in an entirely different shape to the primitive structures of civilization. As people begin to understand the dynamic nature of landscapes, they stop seeing landscapes as a static scene. Sustainable cities must be simultaneously economically viable, socially just, politically well managed and ecologically sustainable to maximize human comfort. The present research suggests a multi-disciplinary approach for attaining a holistic understanding of urban environmental quality and human well-being in relation to sustainable urban development.

Abstract.Decision is an element in the risk management process. In this paper the way how science can help in decision making and implementation for retrofitting buildings in earthquake prone urban areas is investigated. In such interventions actors from various spheres are involved. Their interests range among minimising the intervention for maximal preservation or increasing it for seismic safety. Research was conducted to see how to facilitate collaboration between these actors. A particular attention was given to the role of time in actors' preferences. For this reason, on decision level, both the processural and the personal dimension of risk management, the later seen as a task, were considered. A systematic approach was employed to determine the functional structure of a participative decision model. Three layers on which actors implied in this multi-criteria decision problem interact were identified: town, building and element. Socalled 'retrofit elements' are characteristic bearers in the architectural survey, engineering simulations, costs estimation and define the realms perceived by the inhabitants. This way they represent an interaction basis for the interest groups considered in a deeper study. Such orientation means for actors' interaction were designed on other levels of intervention as well. Finally, an 'experiment' for the implementation of the decision model is presented: a strategic plan for an urban intervention towards reduction of earthquake hazard impact through retrofitting. A systematic approach proves thus to be a very good communication basis among the participants in the seismic risk management process. Nevertheless, it can only be applied in later phases (decision, implementation, control) only, since it serves verifying and improving solution and not developing the concept. The 'retrofit elements' are a typical example of the detailing degree reached in the retrofit design plans in these phases.Correspondence to:

The reduction of seismic risk through the retrofitting of historic buildings serves catastrophe management. In the application of such measures, actors from the spheres of the passive public, experts, as well as active affected people, are involved. The focus of this work is on planning management in the expert area, with a detailed view on the decision space between goals, means, benefits and costs. Buildings of a typology were modelled, and the models translated using a finite elements software with fibre-based modelling of plasticity. The concept of retrofit elements was developed, in order to connect building surveys, construction management, structural simulations, and costs computation based on devices, all related to these retrofit elements. With a view to the general methodology, in order to compare the costs for repairs to buildings after an earthquake with the costs associated with preventive retrofitting of an undamaged building, several cases were considered: damages on a non-retrofitted building, damages on retrofitted building, retrofitting on an undamaged building, retrofitting on a pre-damaged building, and the subsequent damages in an earthquake for the last two. The innovative part of this research lies in the use of the tension-elongation approach to models of building size. Such an analysis allows not only the description of ways of collapsing and the setting of limit states, but also exactly the specific amount and position of the structural members which fail in certain performance criteria. This type of results can form the basis for interdisciplinary studies, such as economic efficiency studies. The method was applied for early reinforced concrete buildings, which are common in Bucharest, Romania, in a deterministic method which takes into account recorded earthquakes. In conclusion, depending on the size of an earthquake, the timing and extent of the retrofit to be applied differ, if we are to obtain cost savings in preventive retrofitting compared to post-earthquake repair. This is presented through a range of costs curves.the application of such a measure in earthquake prone areas, and through their application, save lives in future earthquakes, as well as protecting cultural heritage from irreversible damage through the appropriate choice of an adequate seismic retrofit system and strategy. In the case where this study is exemplified, despite being classified as risk category I, only a few buildings are retrofitted, given the trauma associated with demolitions undertaken in the former totalitarian time. Hence, leaving the flat during retrofitting work is not an option, as inhabitants, who are in this case also owners in condominiums in the central area of Bucharest where most such buildings are located, are afraid that they will be unable to return. Retrofitting measures and strategies considering only the facade were chosen for this study, as this can be compared to energy retrofitting, which has a high level of acceptance in the city, and is being widely performed.At the same time, m...

Abstract. Urban development is a process. In structuring and developing its phases different actors are implied, who act under different, sometimes opposite, dynamic conditions and within different reference systems. This paper aims to explore the contribution of participatism to disaster mitigation, when this concerns earthquake impact on urban settlements, through the support provided to multi-criteria decision in matters of retrofit. The research broadness in field of decision making on one side and the lack of a specific model for the retrofit of existing buildings on another side led to an extensive review of the state of the art in related models to address the issue. Core idea in the selection of existing models has been the preoccupation for collaborative issues, in other words, the consideration for the different actors implied in the planning process. The historic perspective on participative planning models is made from the view of two generations of citizen implication. The first approaches focus on the participation of the building owner/inhabitant in the planning process of building construction. As current strategies building rehabilitation and selection from alternative retrofit strategies are presented. New developments include innovative models using the internet or spatial databases. The investigated participation approaches show, that participation and communication as a more comprehensive term are an old topic in the field politics-democratisation-urbanism. In all cases it can be talked of "successful learning processes", of the improvement of the level of the professional debate. More than 30 years history of participation marked a transition in understanding the concept: from participation, based on a central decision process leading to a solution controlled and steered by the political-administrative system, to communication, characterised by simultaneous decision processes taking place outside politics and administration in cooperative procedures.

Abstract. This study is aimed to create an alternative to the classical GIS representation of the impact of earthquake hazards on urban areas. To accomplish this, the traditional map was revised, so that it can cope with contemporary innovative ways of planning, namely strategic planning. As in the theory of fractals, the building dimension and the urban neighbourhood dimension are addressed as different geographic scales between which lessons for decisions can be learned through regression. The interaction between the two scales is useful when looking for alternatives, for the completion of a GIS analysis, and in choosing the landmarks, which, in the case of hazards, become strategic elements in strategic planning. A methodology to innovate mapping as a digital means for analysing and visualising the impact of hazards is proposed. This method relies on concepts from various geography, urban planning, structural engineering and architecture approaches related to disaster management. The method has been tested at the building scale for the N-S Boulevard in Bucharest, Romania, called Magheru. At the urban scale, an incident database has been created, in which the case study for the building level can be mapped. The paper presented is part of a larger research work, which addresses decision making using the framework shown here. The main value of the paper is in proposing a conceptual framework to deconstruct the map for digital earthquake disaster impact analysis and representation. The originality of the concept consists in the representation of elements at different scales considered to be of different levels of importance in the urban tissue, according to the analysis to be performed on them.