Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(especially when virtual), causes geographic centralities and different ranks
holding on to traditional settlement models to come to mind less so; however,
the landscape can and should serve to increase quality of life by acting on
social relationships, perceptions, and ecosystems. In this new perspective, the
objectives of sustainable development and livability of the urban environment
mutually reinforce each other.
Presently, however, while we manage to define relationships between the
form of the city and systems of functional connectivity , between building den-
sity and bioconnectivity, between land uses and functional hybridization, we do
not know how to evaluate the existing relationships between the functioning of
the ecosystem, the energy and the form of the city [10, 11]. Different studies
have looked into this. On the regional and metropolitan scale we bring to the
reader's attention, for example, the studies by Forman [12]; on the urban scale
those of Girardet, Nijkamp, and Perrels [13]; and on the neighborhood scale
those by Corbett and Corbett [14], Rudin, and Falk. Despite some attempts
[15, 16], there is no common conceptual framework today that allows one to
compare these different approaches and consequently to move from them to the
construction of a scientifically logical and politically dialogic process to make
decisions of governance regarding the desirable urban form and its supporting
urban politics.
What is certain is that the culture of planning—in terms of scientific
statutes and disciplinary skills, professional technical capacities, administra-
tive apparatus, legal tools and institutional frameworks, as well as cultural atti-
tudes and sensitivity—if it is to move in this field with some hope of success,
should be able to:
1.
Look beyond its disciplinary walls and entrust itself to perceptual, ecolog-
ical, and aesthetic interpretations to “ balance conflicting uses that arise
on the land, in the water, and in the air in a spatial, functional, and dynam-
ic perspective ” [17].
2.
Focus attention on relationships, and social, cultural, and ethnic aspects,
moving from how much the representation of the urban area evidences the
existing area, to how much it suggests or evokes instead.
3.
Favor the sharing of scenarios for the city, even in consideration of the fact
that it is not always easy to objectively understand the priority of one
object with respect to another, and the urgency of one project with respect
to another. Sometimes the conflict is not even between public and private
interests, but between contrasting public interests [18].
7.3
Greening the City
Through the landscape, the environment (insofar as it is a component of the
landscape paradigm) enters into the new vision of the city. Urban sociology is
very interested in the potential of relationships between ecological and social
 
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