ESPON Project 2.3.1., Application and effects of the ESDP in Member States. First Interim Report

This First Interim Report includes the initial results of the project "Application and Effects of the ESDP in the Member States" within the ESPON Programme 2000-2006. The focus of the study is the application of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), which was adopted at the Potsdam European Council meeting in May 199

Chapter I servizi ecosistemici nella riproduzione dei sistemi territoriali. Osservazioni da una ricerca sugli scambi montagna-città

From a research for the Metropolitan City of Turin on the flows of matter, energy, services, people and information between the metro-mountain and metro-urban subsystems, it has emerged that the ecosystem flows always have a degree of openness to the outside, which requires an assessment of the positive or negative effects on ecosystems on a larger scale, up to the global one. In perspective, less sectoral and more multifunctional visions of the interventions seem to be required, which also recognize the mountain as a new central location as a privileged place to experiment with alternative life models

Chapter Una dottrina rivoluzionaria della sistemazione dello spazio. Massimo Quaini geografo-pianificatore

The idea of a planning-oriented geography was part of the ‘revolutionary’ renewal program of the discipline proposed by Massimo Quaini since the 70’s. First through an analysis of how human geography was built in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, then in the theoretical and methodological writings in which he critically examines his experiences as a geographer engaged in urban, regional, environmental and landscape planning works. In such writings, he highlights the latent and unsolved contrast between the aim of meeting the needs of the inhabitants and the tendency to organize the local space according to economic competition

In the crossroads of the urban territoriality

The author proposes a new action field for planning and, in general, for all the sciences related to urban phenomenon. It refers to a different perspective on territory, were territoriality is understand as the place capability to influence social behavior, to say, a perspective able to value those aspects –conditions and potentials of territorial resources– that have a positive effect on development and rehabilitation processes.Demmatteis propone un nuevo campo de acción para el planeamiento y, en general, para el conjunto de las ciencias que tienen que ver con el fenómeno urbano. Se refiere a una perspectiva diferente del territorio, en la cual la territorialidad es entendida como la capacidad del lugar para influir en el comportamiento social, es decir, que valora aquellos aspectos –condiciones y potenciales de los diversos recursos territoriales– que afectan positivamente los procesos de desarrollo y rehabilitación

La città ha bisogno della montagna. La montagna ha diritto alla città

La storia dei territori montani è sempre stata – ed è tuttora – dominata da immaginari che diventano realtà: fino dall’inizio della modernità, la montagna è stata percepita come un serbatoio naturale di natura e loisir per città in crescita inarrestabile; più tardi, queste città hanno largamente penetrato le montagne le quali, come semplici dépendances urbane, sono andate incontro a un ineluttabile destino di spopolamento e abbandono: si stima che, oggi, in tale stato versi oltre il 20% dell’intero territorio nazionale. Negli anni recenti si assiste, invece, a una radicale inversione di questa tendenza: ‘amenity migrants’, immigrati e persone in cerca di spazi disponibili per coltivare economie ‘verdi’ e solidali stanno lentamente ripopolando la montagna, sfatando i diffusi pregiudizi concernenti la sua marginalità: essa non è affatto una sorta di handicap congenito, ma una condizione storica legata alla mancanza di politiche centrate sui suoi peculiari stili e opportunità di sviluppo – che, ovviamente, variano da un caso all’altro. Questo mutamento nel nostro atteggiamento verso la montagna può aprire la strada ad una pluralità di scenari di integrazione fra essa e la città, in cui una redistribuzione più equilibrata di centralità spaziali, sociali, economiche e culturali può favorire lo strutturarsi di modelli di sviluppo alternativi alla scala territoriale.The history of mountain territories has always been – and still is – dominated by imaginations becoming reality: since the beginnings of modernity, mountains have been perceived as an occasional reservoir of nature and leisure for growing cities; later on, such cities largely penetrated the mountains which, as mere urban dependences, gradually but inexorably became depopulated and abandoned: it is estimated that more than 20% of Italian territories are currently in such state of abandonment. Over the recent years, however, we are witnessing a major turnabout in this trend: ‘amenity migrants’, immigrants and people looking for ‘free’ spaces to grow a green and fair economy, are slowly repopulating mountain areas, dispelling the widespread prejudices about their marginality: this is not a structural handicap, but a historical condition depending on the lacks of policies focused on their peculiar development styles and opportunities – which can obviously vary from case to case. This change in our attitude towards the mountains can pave the way to multiple scenarios of integration between them and the cities, in which a more balanced redistribution of (spatial, social, economic and cultural) centralities can foster new and different development models at the territorial scale

CONTRAURBANIZAÇÃO, PERIURBANIZAÇÃO, CIDADE DISPERSA E REDE DE CIDADES NA ITÁLIA

From a synthesis as to how Urban Geography conceptually proposed the understanding of widening and dispersion processes of cities, recent dynamics which characterize those are analyzed, using Italy as a reference. The observed transformations of the processes at hand are in fact related to the changes in the way of capitalist production as well as demographic evolution, further displaying the differences between  diverse areas in the country. In this article, contemporary Italian cities are viewed as more or less extended territorial systems, whose relations of proximity, belonging to a continuous local space, interact with multi-scale relations pertaining to yet another type of space: that which is discontinuous from the flows and the networks.A partir de uma síntese do modo como a Geografia Urbana, conceitualmente, propôs a compreensão dos processos de alargamento e dispersão da cidade, as dinâmicas recentes que os caracterizam são analisadas, tomando-se como referência a Itália. As transformações observadas nos processos em tela são relacionadas às mudanças nas formas de produção capitalistas e à evolução demográfica, mostrando, ainda, as diferenças entre as regiões do país. Neste artigo, as cidades italianas de hoje são pensadas como sistemas territoriais mais ou menos estendidos, cujas relações de proximidade, pertencentes a um espaço contínuo local, interagem com relações multiescalares que pertencem a outro tipo de espaço: aquele descontínuo dos fluxos e das redes

Fertilizzazioni incrociate tra geografia e pianificazione ambientale e paesaggistica

The cooperation with town an country planners, as Roberto Gambino, enabled the author to overcome the separation between geographical description and planning, conceiving descriptions as implicit projects and planning as a learning process, linked together in a circular performing way. This interactive cross fertilization is particularly clear when we consider the landscape as a symbolic representation intersecting and linking together ecosphere, semiosphere and sociosphere. This approach allow us to detect the “structural invariant” of places as the rules of sustainable transformation of them

COUNTER-URBANIZATION, PERI-URBANIZATION, DISPERSE CITY AND CITY NETWORKS IN ITALY

Da una panoramica di come la geografia urbana, concettualmente, ha proposto la comprensione dei processi di allargamento e dispersione della città, le dinamiche recenti che gli caratterizzano vengono analizzati, prendendosi come riferimento l'Italia. I cambiamenti osservati nei processi dello schermo sono relative ai cambiamenti nelle forme di produzione capitalista e l’evoluzione demografico, che mostra anche le differenze tra le regioni del paese. In questo articolo, le città italiane di oggi vano pensate come sistemi territoriali più o meno estesi, in cui le relazioni di prossimità, appartenenti a uno spazio continuo locale interagiscono con relazioni multiscalari che appartengono a un altro tipo di spazio: quello discontinuo dei flussi e delle reti.From a synthesis as to how Urban Geography conceptually proposed the understanding of widening and dispersion processes of cities, recent dynamics which characterize those are analyzed, using Italy as a reference. The observed transformations of the processes at hand are in fact related to the changes in the way of capitalist production as well as demographic evolution, further displaying the differences between diverse areas in the country. In this article, contemporary Italian cities are viewed as more or less extended territorial systems, whose relations of proximity, belonging to a continuous local space interact with multi-scale relations pertaining to yet another type of space: that which is discontinuous from the flows and the networks