Raffaele Paloscia, architect, works at the University of Florence. Professor of Planning at the Faculty of Architecture. Head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (2003-09). Profesor Invitado at the Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura de Granada (2010). At the moment he is co-ordinator of: LabPSM (Laboratory City and Territory in the South of the World); International Activities of the Faculty of Architecture INURA/Florence (International Network for Urban Research and Action), MoU with Universities of Colima (Messico); Catolica Nordestana (Dominicana); Jadavpur-Kolkata and SPA-New Delhi (India); Belgrade (Serbia); Granada (Spain); Del Litoral, Santa Fe (Argentina) As expert in urban and regional planning, especially in the countries of the South, he co-ordinated several international researches and cooperation projects. His research publications (2000-2011) include; Petites villes et transformation écologique dans le Sahel, Niger, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2000 ; The Contested Metropolis. Six Cities at the Beginning of the 21th Century, INURA, Birkhauser, Basel-Boston-Berlin, 2004; City, Environment and Local Heritage in a Globalised World, Edifir, Firenze, 2007; Habitat ed organizzazione sociale nell’isola di Jata, delta del Gange, in Archivio per l’Antropologia vol. CXXXVI-2008 (with Roselli); El patrimonio territorial como recurso para la transformación autosustentable de la ciudad de La Habana, Cuba, Forum UNESCO/University and Heritage, 2010 (with Spitoni, on line).