City as hope. Valuation science and the ethics of capital

This contribution deals with the relationship between the spirit of the valuation logic and the city as capital asset, by considering the space/time asymmetry that concerns the land-resources allocation pattern. Such asymmetries, necessary for the economy, raise relevant issues about solidarity, typically involving the science of valuation committed in the achievement of economic fairness. The ethical content of urban policy cannot be defined outside of the cognitive and heuristic functions that are activated by practicing the judgment over the entire spectrum, ranging from statements of fact, through value judgments, up to the judgments of merit attributed in decision making. The study is in two stages. The first one concerns the “ecology of realty” centered on the ethics of limit. The second one defines the ecology of city, centered on the ethics of capital.