Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8.4.5
Environmental Networks, Peri-urban Agricultural Areas
and Communities
Ilenia Pierantoni
The traditional relationship between city and country is one of the first
issues to be addressed and redefined. Historically, this relationship used to
be characterized by balance and original relationships and specifications
between the city and its surrounding environment; however, it has under-
gone a gradual process of change and disequilibrium: the urban dimension
has increasingly become the predominant element within a context of open
spaces that is gradually losing value and meaning [1].
The current urban debate, after years of analysis of the nature and model
of growth of the contemporary city, is finally focusing its attention on the
research for new orders, rules, and alternative models capable to restore a
new order in territories of extreme complexity, characterized by the con-
stant presence of naturality, rurality, and urbanity.
In this sense the conceptual overturning and the search for a new order
should start from the
environmental networks
, in particular from agricul-
tural practices and their relationship with urban areas. Environmental net-
works, such as greenways [2], may significantly contribute to the regener-
ation of
degraded contexts
, stimulating the upgrading of natural ecosys-
tems and the maintenance of
ecosystem services
[3]. They can specifically
guide the redefinition of urban design, going into the planning and defining
the structural invariants on which the new plans will lay the foundations for
innovative and virtuous models of development, exploiting and upgrading
territorial values. Open spaces, through agricultural innovation, may devel-
op environmental performances and find new ways to provide public goods
and spaces, with the aim to improve the quality of life; at the same time,
urban areas may constitute a relevant experimental opportunity to stimulate
innovative practices, such as multifunctional agriculture, to be exploited in
relation to the supply of public services and products for the city. This, in
a time of crisis like the present one, could lead to the development of an
economic system based on the local scale, and respond to the growing
demand for new social and natural spaces and landscapes, while also
increasing the quality of life of
local communities
.
Therefore,
agriculture
can effectively be the regenerating element of
the complexity of peri-urban areas, becoming the new binding element, the
new relational matrix between what is urban and what is open space [4].
Understanding the meaning of this opportunity means giving way to new
economies, new policies for social inclusion, and new projects for the land-
scape and for the rehabilitation of large settlement contexts. Significant are,
in this sense, the French experiences, especially the “Ceinture Verte
Régionale,” which includes all of the municipalities in the Île-de-France
Search WWH ::
Custom Search