The Role of City Dashboards in Managing Public Real Estate in Italy: Proposals for a Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Public real estate management (PREM) is at the center of international debate concerning the theories of New Public Management (NPM) and public governance (PG). These principles have progressively led to a profound restructuring of the public administration system and have overcome several limits assigned to public bodies in the PREM field. Among these, the lack of data and information on the public real estate (PRE) portfolio has been considered a common issue for prereform asset management until very recently. Deficiencies in building real property inventories are normal today in most places and in Italy, where municipalities are facing many challenges when developing information technology–based infrastructures. The main aim of this study is to define a conceptual framework for a city dashboard to support PREM. The city dashboard is understood to be a knowledge, managerial, and participatory tool that can collect, map and catalog, and update and share property data. This can be used to support the integration of PREM in urban governance policies and to involve citizens and private investors (PIs) in urban regeneration projects.