European marginalised areas are affected by an alarming rate of abandonment and depopulation. Thus, they are therefore object of specific European policies aiming to their reactivation. Official ...guidelines, both European and Italian, indicate sustainable tourism as one of the main triggers able to activate positive processes. This research experiments a suggestion in a case study, the North of Sardinia. The coastal areas of Sardinia are popular tourist destinations, particularly in the North with the famous Costa Smeralda. Therefore, it is worthy to imagine a way to allow them to discover the inner territories of the region too.
A crux that urban planning has been dragging on for decades is the generalization with which it uses the words of ecology. A generalization that cannot be allowed in the face of a territorial project ...that is thirsty for truth about the ecosystem. The territorialist proposal, that already embraces the idea of ecological conversion by Langer, may be a possible path for the next changes. But some ghosts need to be defeated: technological blunder, ecological ignorance, administrative fragmentation, etc. Soil is the ecosystem resource denied by the urban project. But it is also the parameter through which we can monitor the effort or failure of urban planning towards the care of the territory. In Italy, land consumption is out of control and continues not to be at the center of any reform. At the same time, urban planning does not care about land consumption and, perhaps, one reason for this distraction is the profound and intimate lack of knowledge of what soil ecologically is. Making room for these words in study paths, in political training, in the updating of public and private technicians is a question that we pose as crucial for moving in the future and addressing what has now become, by dint of neglect, an urgency: the ecological and climatic crisis. More than a new anthropic civilization, an ecologization of civilization is urgent. Working on precise ecological words is a symbolic key issue.
Un nodo che l'urbanistica si trascina da lustri è la generalizzazione con la quale usa le parole dell'ecologia. Una generalizzazione che non si può permettere davanti a un progetto di territorio che ...ha sete di verità sull'ecosistema. La proposta territorialista, già vicina all'idea di conversione ecologica di Langer, può essere un percorso possibile per i cambiamenti necessari. Ma occorre sconfiggere alcuni fantasmi: l'abbaglio tecnologico, l'ignoranza ecologica, la frammentazione amministrativa, etc.. Il suolo è la risorsa ecosistemica negata dal progetto urbano. Ma è anche il parametro attraverso il quale possiamo monitorare lo sforzo o il fallimento dell'urbanistica verso la cura del territorio. In Italia il consumo di suolo è fuori controllo e continua a non essere al centro di alcuna riforma. La stessa urbanistica non se ne cura e, forse, un motivo di questa distrazione è proprio nella non conoscenza profonda e intima di cosa sia effettivamente ed ecologicamente il suolo. Fare spazio a queste parole nei percorsi di studio, nella formazione politica, nell'aggiornamento dei tecnici pubblici e privati, è una questione che poniamo come cruciale per muoverci in direzione futuro e affrontare quella che ormai è divenuta, a furia di trascuratezza, un'urgenza: la crisi ecologica e climatica. Più che una nuova civilizzazione antropica, urge una ecologizzazione della civiltà. E le parole precise sono una chiave simbolica. Parole-chiave: suolo; educazione ecologica; tecnologia; consumo di suolo; territorialismo. A crux that urban planning has been dragging on for decades is the generalization with which it uses the words of ecology. A generalization that cannot be allowed in the face of a territorial project that is thirsty for truth about the ecosystem. The territorialist proposal, already close to Langer's idea of ecological conversion, may be a possible path for necessary changes. But some ghosts need to be defeated: technological blunder, ecological ignorance, administrative fragmentation, etc.. Soil is the ecosystem resource denied by the urban project. But it is also the parameter through which we can monitor the effort or failure of urban planning towards territorial care. In Italy, land consumption is out of control and keeps staying out of any reform. The very urban planning does not care about it and, perhaps, one reason for this distraction is the profound and intimate lack of knowledge of what soil ecologically is. Making room for these words in study paths, in political training, in the updating of public and private technicians, is a question we pose as crucial for moving towards the future and addressing what has now become, by dint of neglect, an urgency: the ecological and climatic crisis. More than a new human civilization, an ecologization of civilization is urgent. And precise words are always a symbolic key. Keywords: soil; ecological education; technology; soil & land consumption; territorialism.
This study aims at demonstrating how cycle tourism could activate a regeneration of small and medium sized stations in inland areas, able to involve also territorial and urban areas hosting these ...stations. Starting point of this research is the issue of the small and medium sized Italian stations, mostly unused even if they are still active as rail service. Since control of trains’ traffic is organized only in bigger railway yards, small stations are gradually becoming empty containers:
ghost stations
, without any railway personnel. Thanks to the potentiality of the cycle tourism, riding slow through landscapes, it becomes possible to valorize and safeguard this heritage, not only exploiting its potentiality as shift-node between train and bike, but also imaging a systemic strategy triggering urban, territorial and social reactivation. Main challenge was to experiment how another model of mobility, the cycle tourism, able to promote a territorial project preferring to pass slowly through the inland areas, avoided by the fast infrastructural lines, could contribute in such regeneration process. In order to validate this intuition, it was carried out a project of four stations in proximity of the cycle tourist path VENTO, along the Po River. These stations were transformed in “green mobility hubs”, where shifting from train to bicycle and vice versa. This becomes the occasion to imagining new functions hosted in empty spaces of stations (both internal and external): they will provide cycle tourists with territorial info and specific services, such as repair areas and bikes and baggage safekeeping and both tourists and local inhabitants with social activities in order to bring them to live again station’s area. These functions want to generate an expectation, both in tourists and local people, to rediscover the territory around: in this way stations reassume their role of urban and territorial gates.
As thresholds to cities, public spaces adjacent to schools play an important role in children’s everyday mobilities, potentially shaping their future mobility habits and affective experiences. The ...purpose of this paper is to investigate the urban design conditions of such spaces, defined as “school squares”, and, with the aid of affordance theory, to analyze spatial features and characteristics that might encourage or hinder active and sustainable mobility practices. In the first part of the paper, we define sustainable mobility, conduct a literature review on affective responses to the urban environment, and discuss active school travel (AST) in relation to the design of school squares. By focusing on 416 primary and lower secondary schools in the metropolitan area of Milan, we present an assessment method that is composed of on-desk and on-site surveys. In particular, Phase 1 defines the type of school squares, Phase 2 investigates physical affordances (spatial features and characteristics that directly influence active mobility practices, such as bicycle racks, protective barriers, benches, and parked cars), and Phase 3 discusses symbolic affordances (elements and characteristics that might induce different affective responses to a school square with regard to active mobility, such as bicycle racks, parked cars, greenery, and dustbins). The results indicate that in most cases school squares are characterized by typological confusion that has nothing to do with the school environment: narrow sidewalks, disorder, and low levels of safety. In order to promote active and sustainable mobility choices and enhance children’s mobile experiences, it is necessary to address the aforementioned features. The ultimate goal of this paper is to provide insights for developing an urban regeneration framework that considers school squares a safe context and a starting point from which to perform sustainable mobility practices.
Background
Technology has become a ‘life companion’ in our cities. Thanks to its fascinating power and the huge economic interest behind it, technology has recently reached an ‘epic’ role in our ...expectations for exiting the profound crisis we are in. The city represents the perfect place for such a marvel. Even if we really cannot get along without it, nevertheless technology has a ‘dark side’ that needs to be known.
Methods
In this, paper we try to understand if and why we have to protect the place of the critical debate starting from our cities. Do the problems of our cities really have to do with the lack of technologies?
Results
Critical thinking makes us understand that we need to enforce the tools that people can use to recognize the benefits and menaces of technologies, avoiding the illusion of embracing the idea of a city that is good just because it is ‘smart’. Innovation and equity are not two spontaneously cooperating issues.
Conclusions
Urbanism and urban politics have new challenges ahead that are harder than we think. This paper presents five proposals to open a discussion suggesting some first steps.
Introduction
Soil is under pressure worldwide. In Italy, in the last two decades, land consumption has reached an average rate of 8 m
2
, demonstrating the failure of urban planning in controlling ...these phenomena. Despite the renewed recognition of the central role of soil resources, which has triggered numerous initiatives and actions, soil resources are still seen as a second-tier priority. No governance body exists to coordinate initiatives to ensure that soils are appropriately represented in decision-making processes. Global Soil Partnership draws our attention to the need for coordination to avoid fragmentation of efforts and wastage of resources. Both at a global and at a local level, the area of fertile soils is limited and is increasingly under pressure by competing land uses for settlement, infrastructure, raw materials extraction, agriculture, and forestry.
Discussion and Evaluation
Here, we show that an administrative event, such as the creation of a new small municipality, can take place without any consideration of land and soil risks. This is particularly problematic in the Italian context as recent studies demonstrate that increasing local power in land use decisions coupled with weak control by the central administration and the high fragmentation and small dimension of municipalities has boosted land consumption. The fragmentation of municipalities has been detrimental to land conservation.
Case description
The case study of Mappano (in the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont on the periphery of the regional capital city of Turin) is emblematic to demonstrate the role played by the supremacy of local identity or local interests despite the acknowledged importance of the key role played by soil everywhere. The contradiction highlighted by this case raises discussion amid some crucial issues as to the role of local urban planning and the protection of soil, which cannot be fragmented or subject to local short-term visions/interests.
Conclusions
In this perspective, urban planning has to address soil and land issues by introducing new rules and competences at the local level and beyond.
The innovative approach to the protection and management of water resources at the basin scale introduced by the European Union water framework directive (WFD) requires new scientific tools. WFD ...implementation also requires the participation of many stakeholders (administrators, farmers and citizens) with the aim of improving the quality of river waters and basin ecosystems through cooperative planning. This approach encompasses different issues, such as agro-ecology, land use planning and water management. This paper presents the results of a methodology suggested for implementing the WFD in the case of the Seveso river contract in Italy, one of the recent WFD applications. The Seveso basin in the Lombardy region has been one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas in Italy over the last 50 years. First, land use changes in the last 50 years are assessed with the use of historical aerial photos. Then, elements of an ecological network along the river corridor are outlined, and different scenarios for enhancing existing ecological connections are assessed using indicators from graph theory. These scenarios were discussed in technical workshops with involved stakeholders of the river contract. The results show a damaged rural landscape, where urbanization processes have decimated the system of linear green features (hedges/rows). Progressive reconnections of some of the identified network nodes may significantly increase the connectivity and circuitry of the study area.
PDF
