"The research project aims at exploring potentialities offered in the Environmental and Community Planning field by the direct involvement of university faculty, staff and students in promoting social and economic development in long-term underdeveloped areas. The research will be conducted through the direct involvement of the researcher in Participatory Action Research experiences in the host and return phases of the project, in two geographic areas that – even characterized by significant differences in culture, history, economy, etc. – share the status of lagging regions, especially if compared with their countries of belonging: the Mid-South (USA) and Sicily (Italy). The aim of the research is to implement and compare at least two high quality case studies, at the neighbourhood scale (one in the city of Memphis during the host phase and the other in the city of Catania during the return phase), evaluating the effectiveness of planning strategies adopted in practice and highlighting how community-University partnerships can have transformative impacts as sustainable development and research organizations in difficult contexts like those mentioned above. Such an outcome will give a significant contribution to the European debate on how spatial planning can address territorial cohesion among regions with different status of development. Moreover, addressing a longer project of collaboration between the two institutions involved, with the possibility of establishing in the future a ""Promoting Community Environmental Participatory Planning"" Italian-American Consortium, the project will significantly contribute to the advancement of the researcher's career, allowing her to achieve fundamental skills and steps to fulfil her academic curriculum such as: excellent international records in her fields of interest together with full responsibility in the fund-rising and organizing activities of the possible consortium."