Changes in Vision - Urban Landscapes: Environmental Networks and Quality of Life - page 48

ment aimed at the creation of “ attractive places where people want to live
and work both now and in the future ” (Bristol Accord): public space ;
architectural quality of the anthropic landscape (to be promoted both
through the conservation of the historical heritage and through new realiza-
tions); urban planning imprinted with the formation of compact settlements
characterized by a mix of functions; infrastructure for intermodal mobility
(with particular attention to pedestrian, cycling, and public transport net-
works); the requalification of degraded neighborhoods with actions coordi-
nated in the urban and social plans; the recovery of decommissioned areas;
social housing ; and urban services .

6.1 Evaluating and Monitoring the Sustainability

of Governing Actions

The debate on the sustainable city and quality of life in the city is like a large
arena, where heterogeneous approaches and contributions originating in dif-
ferent disciplines are compared without converging on a common vision and,
as a consequence, without finding integrated analysis and project tools suit-
able for facing the challenge of sustainability. Since the Brundtland Report,
rivers of ink have flowed through this theme, numerous world encounters
between superpowers and great environmentalists have taken place, and spon-
taneous acts on behalf of local communities have been made, but the risk is
that everything ends with rhetoric. The conviction regarding the need to con-
centrate governing actions toward sustainability is unanimous, though diver-
gent, even substantially, in the implementation paths chosen; also in this case,
the key is techne .
A large part of the scientific literature on the sustainable city defines crite-
ria and analysis models that reveal a vertical approach, oriented toward con-
centrating on specific disciplinary fields, even though the EU, through the
“Thematic strategy on the urban environment” 1 (2006) and the “Common
framework of cooperation for the sustainable development of the urban envi-
ronment” (Quadro comunitario di cooperazione per lo sviluppo sostenibile
dell'ambiente urbano) 2 even earlier, call for coordination with other interested
environmental policies, keeping foremost in mind the trans-sectoral nature of
all strategies for improving the urban environment.

1 COM/2005/0718 took account of the trans-sectoral nature of questions pertaining to urban man-
agement; any strategy for improving the urban environment requires coordination with other relat-
ed environmental policies, i.e. the fight against climate change (buildings that favor energy effi-
ciency, urban transportation plans, and so on), the protection of nature and biodiversity (reduction
of the proliferation of cities, recovery of abandoned industrial areas, and so on), quality of life and
health (reduction of atmospheric and noise pollution, and so on), and the sustainable use of natu-
ral resources in addition to the prevention and recycling of waste.
2 Gazzetta ufficiale delle Comunità europee, L191/1 (13 July 2001).