The Metabolism of Changes - Urban Landscapes: Environmental Networks and Quality of Life - page 43

landscape (“… a landscape means an area, as perceived by people … ”), in
fact, a personal subjective interpretation of landscape is improperly likened
to the collective vision of the population as a whole. We know that this com-
mon good [4] rests on the thousands of interpretations that subjective per-
ceptions generate, but which should lead to a collective vision (“… by peo-
ple …”). Otherwise there would be no landscape. The homogenization of dif-
ferent perceptions occurs in time and through different methods according to
the anthropological environment in which it is located: for example, it is cer-
tainly easier to homogenize the society of a country than that of a metropol-
itan hinterland.

5.2 The Common Sense of the Landscape

The common sense of the landscape is a resource for the identifying value of
living , if it derives from planning and political work. If, instead, that landscape
is poorly integrated with the living community, processes should be triggered
to render collective a sense that would otherwise remain completely subjective
and generate very different and contrasting results. As Eugenio Turri reminds
us, integration begins with collective sensitivity to the landscape: there are
societies that almost do not notice the landscape, while others approach it atten-
tively. Care for the landscape “ is the work of social actors that know how to
watch and get a sense of humans' role as a territorial agent ” [5].
Therefore, planning, within the new vision and ideas introduced by the
ELC, should assume all of its responsibilities. It is up to this to support plan-
ning and political work that favors a common sense of the landscape, which
is rooted in the population. In fact, Giuseppe Dematteis [6, 7] reminds us that
a poorly integrated, nonmetabolized landscape signals the presence of a dis-
integrated living community . However, common sense should be reached
without provoking the sterilization of vital potential in the relationships
between individual people and the territory. Planning is the tool through
which metabolism passes; because of this, it is responsible for the conscience
of the landscape in a community. This can favor the regulation of relation-
ships between the expectations of the community and territory, providing the
technical/scientific support for the activation of civil society in public poli-
tics through participatory decision-making processes, toward innovative
forms of deliberative democracy.
Community involvement requires a concrete basis that planning finds dif-
ficult to offer. The reasoned interpretation of places and the effective critical
representation 3 , whether of new areas under transformation or those where

3 See Chapter 8.4.1 by Vincenzo Riso (University of Minho) in this volume.