Simone has been working on the topics of sustainable and integrated urban development at national and European level since 2006, with the aim of informing and fostering the participation of Italian local officials and elected representatives around those topics. As journalist and communicator on urban topics, he dedicated most of his professional career to promote successful experiences of sustainable urban development and to foster the exchange of practices and approaches among Italian and European cities. Between 2006 and 2010 he worked in Brussels as communication and policy officer in charge of the Working group on Environment, Urban Mobility and Energy for the European foundation of the Italian Association of Municipalities and Cities (ANCI). In that framework he promoted the participation of Italian cities to EU co-funded programmes and thematic initiatives on urban sustainability, such as the Covenant of Mayors. He has contributed to the promotion of URBACT programme and practices among Italian cities since 2008, and from 2012 he has been working as responsible for the communication activities of the National Dissemination Point of URBACT for Italy (Cittalia Research Foundation of ANCI). As Cittalia’s communication officer from 2010 to 2015 he developed communication strategies and storytelling approaches on sustainable urban development that he promoted at global level also in the occasion of the UN Habitat’s Urban Journalism Academies organized in view of the Habitat III Conference