HOPE PROJECT: Home of People and Equality in Empoli, Tuscany

The PIU HOPE Project helps to redevelop Empoli’s old town centre, with the objective of promoting new urban centres within which to converge a plurality of complementary functions devoted to different areas, to be adopted as opportunities for developing the territory. The specific objectives of the project are: reducing social hardship in the field of social-health services through the restoration of buildings and areas to be allocated to social functions; creating an integrated system of services to support innovation and the socio- economic development of the territory, including in synergy with the University of Florence already present in the accessible part of the ancient Hospital S.Giuseppe - the hearth of this urban regeneration action; creating the functional and smart connection of the open public spaces related to the areas of action; promoting new forms of social aggregation in order to improve the integration of the most marginalized and vulnerable categories of Empoli society. One of the peculiarities of HOPE project is represented by the extremely complex goal of the revitalisation of an important area of the old town centre of a town of nearly 50,000 inhabitants, through integrated and intersectoral actions that are the result of participatory and specific analysis of the territorial data collected. The regeneration strategy aims at strengthening the role of Empoli’s old town centre as place of identity, a hub of services - both at local and metropolitan level.