The returns of territories

The new attention to places arising from the globalisation crisis has two opposite senses – one pointing at extracting from places the last remains of value they contain, the other at restarting the production of value crushed by the machine civilisation – and two spatial forms: concentration versus polycentrism, megacities versus urban bioregions. Once analysed the social/territorial models behind this opposition, the paper embraces the second as the true way for a return of territories; describes the necessary steps articulating this process in a territorialist vision; finally, sees its emerging signs in social/ institutional instruments, policies and practices for a new, bottom-up globalisation.La nueva atención a los lugares que surgen de la crisis de la globalización tiene dos sentidos opuestos –uno apunta a extraer de los lugares los últimos restos de valor que contienen, el otro apuesta a reanudar la producción de valor que se vio aplastado por el avance de la civilización– y dos formas espaciales: concentración versus policentrismo, megaciudades versus biorregiones urbanas. Una vez analizados los modelos sociales y territoriales detrás de esta oposición, el artículo abarca el segundo como el verdadero camino para el retorno de los territorios; describe los pasos necesarios para articular este proceso dentro de una visión territorialista; y, finalmente, ve sus signos emergentes en instrumentos, políticas y prácticas sociales e institucionales para una nueva globalización de abajo hacia arriba

Riterritorializzare il mondo

A scientific multidisciplinary vision (territorialism) meets halfway the forceful re-emergence of a historical subject (new rurality) in a context in which cyclical and epochal crises converge in making necessary - and more urgent than ever - an ecological re-conversion of the entire model of western civilisation: putting man ‘down to earth’, ‘coming back’ to earth, therefore, means here to ‘come back’ to territory, rebuilding through four parallel movements the co-evolutionary dynamics - of which it is, at the same time, the outcome and the precondition - broken by the predatory drift of the economy and culture of ‘global city’.Una visione scientifica multidisciplinare (quella territorialista) incontra a mezza strada il riemergere prepotente di un soggetto storico (la nuova ruralità) in una temperie in cui crisi di natura congiunturale ed epocale convergono a rendere necessaria - e quanto mai urgente - una riconversione ecologica dell’intero modello occidentale di civilizzazione: rimettere l’uomo ‘con i piedi per terra’, ‘tornare’ dunque alla terra, vuol dire qui ‘tornare’ al territorio, ricostruendo attraverso quattro movimenti paralleli le dinamiche coevolutive - di cui esso rappresenta, allo stesso tempo, l’esito e la precondizione - interrotte dalla deriva predatoria dell’economia e della cultura della ‘città globale’

Dal parco al progetto di territorio: evoluzione o discontinuità?

In celebrating Roberto Gambino, I underline the ethical role of his professional activity, systematically oriented to experiment scientific advancements of town planning towards territorial and landscape quality in fostering public interest. On the substantive level, I agree upon many statements, e.g. parks as workshops for putting landscape into value; nevertheless I underline some discontinuity (in objectives, tools, socio- economical implications) in moving from parks as policies for protecting specific areas “from” development, towards the territorial project as added value for the entire regional territory, “for” the quality of development itself

Chapter Massimo Quaini, territorialista

The essay illustrates Quaini’s inputs to the construction and the theoretical/operational development of the territorialist school and, later on, of the Territorialist Society, of which he was one of the major founders and guarantors. In his explication of concepts like place, territory, landscape, place awareness, Quaini anticipates the need for a multidisciplinary territorialist lexicon. Taking from Herodote Italia the focus on the fundamental integration of historical and spatial knowledge, he recommends a confluence of geography into the territorialist multidisciplinary system, exemplifying it in relation to topics like territorial museums, local observatories of landscape, statute of places, foundational description, new relationships between city and countryside

Chapter Un’introduzione ai servizi eco-territoriali

The text supports the introduction, alongside ecosystems services, of eco-territorial services, which unlike the former depend for their very existence on human care actions. To assess them (under a monetary or other perspective) it is necessary to distinguish between the use value and the existence value of each element of the territorial heritage: such a measure can drop to zero or rise to infinity, and is strongly dependent on the culture of the subjects who use it; this also requires the degree of self-determination of their communities to be included in the assessment

La reaparición del territorio.

The new attention to places arising from the globalisation crisis has two opposite senses – one pointing at extracting from places the last remains of value they contain, the other at restarting the production of value crushed by the machine civilisation – and two spatial forms: concentration versus polycentrism, megacities versus urban bioregions. Once analysed the social/territorial models behind this opposition, the paper embraces the second as the true way for a return of territories; describes the necessary steps articulating this process in a territorialist vision; finally, sees its emerging signs in social/ institutional instruments, policies and practices for a new, bottom-up globalisation.La nueva atención a los lugares que surgen de la crisis de la globalización tiene dos sentidos opuestos –uno apunta a extraer de los lugares los últimos restos de valor que contienen, el otro apuesta a reanudar la producción de valor que se vio aplastado por el avance de la civilización– y dos formas espaciales: concentración versus policentrismo, megaciudades versus biorregiones urbanas. Una vez analizados los modelos sociales y territoriales detrás de esta oposición, el artículo abarca el segundo como el verdadero camino para el retorno de los territorios; describe los pasos necesarios para articular este proceso dentro de una visión territorialista; y, finalmente, ve sus signos emergentes en instrumentos, políticas y prácticas sociales e institucionales para una nueva globalización de abajo hacia arriba

Patrimonio territoriale e coralità produttiva: nuove frontiere per i sistemi economici locali

The territorialist alternative to a development model menacing to destroy life contexts is based on experimenting and networking new forms of ‘bottom-up’ local development, based on the enhancement of territorial heritage as common good. These actions are unified by the practice of ‘commoning’, of ‘common doing’, which is to say the management and the deliberately uncompetitive care of local resources. Such practices testify a rediscovery of “place consciousness”, a widespread sharing of economic production aims that include a ‘socio-territorial responsibility’ oriented towards the wellbeing of dwellers and places. The paper analyses the roots of this kind of approach, presenting a wide reflection that goes from the historical forms of land ownership to the theories of local development affirmed since the second half of the last century. The paper illustrates the various kinds of local action tools used in the various practices under consideration, outlining the common characters emerging from their analysis

Villages and Urbanization

In this article comments by politician Boris Johnson and economist Edward Glaeser exemplify narratives of global urbanization that portray rural villages as redundant and perpetuate outdated notions of urban–rural division. Simultaneously, traditional urban–rural dialectics are distorted by divisive new urban projects like gated communities styled as villages. This paper argues for development models that acknowledge the vital environmental and economic roles played by rural villages, and opposes artificially created “villages” in cities. In so doing, alternative readings of rurality and villages by Rem Koolhaas, Brazilian land reformers, Mahatma Gandhi, and critics of contemporary Indian literature and urbanism are considered