Campagne urbane. Paesaggi in trasformazione nell'area romana

The research, stemming from the collaboration between different disciplines, tackles the City of Rome and its outskirts, stressing its transformations for over a century (from 1870 onwards). Urban development is considered from neglected point of view, that of the “countryside”, tied with the destiny of the city under conditions of absolute dependence (with rural areas being seen as supplies for urban uses). Part One (Interpretations) takes into account the conditions which lead to the fading of morphological and functional limits between the city and its surrounding region. Part Two (In-depth Examinations) provides a bird’s eye view of the main transformations in the roman area as a whole over the last 40 years by means of geographic information systems, showing some of the patterns of fragmentation of open spaces. Hence, it delves into these phenomena in specific districts of the roman area, with their own settlement stories. Part Three (Towards a comprehensive Glance) stresses some of the major problems in the urban government, split among rules concerning urban growth (the new Master Plan), the protection of ecological functionality and environmental sustainability in natural areas, and regulations and opportunities left to peri-urban agriculture patterns. The so-called “fragmentation” is used as a “proxy” to describe the degree of abuse of land resources, such as the processes of occlusion and breaking up of tracts of open territory over the last 20 years by the main transport routes and urbanisation. In the diachronic survey there are two pictures: the first one dating from 1992, the second from 2002, showing the “changing states” of pieces of “open space” from larger to smaller sizes. In the less populated areas, fragmentation is related to the expansion of woodlands, whilst in proximity of the urban stain it bears different meanings according to the different thresholds end their time and space distribution. Even though it cannot be argued that these phenomena are definitely anticipating the urban sprawl, it can be stressed that the on-going processes, according to the town-planning tools of the municipalities included in the survey, conspire against ecological continuity. The isolation of territorial resources is symptomatic of bio-diversity reduction, and indirectly provides the signs of a risk for the territory and its environment. Part Four (Balancing between Governance and Planning) shows that, at any scale, landscape has to be “called upon” and “referred to” in order to clarify conflicts between different values and uses. These different implications meet at specific points of the greater roman area with a particular echo: here the interferences between different “territory projects” have often imposing consequences over settlement and environment.

La ricerca, frutto di una collaborazione interdisciplinare, scandisce per periodizzazioni, dominanti tematiche ed episodi significativi le fasi della progressiva smaterializzazione del margine tra città e campagna, anche con l’impiego di strumenti analitici che fanno uso di immagini satellitari a media risoluzione, del tutto inediti nell’area romana. Sono inoltre evidenziati, con riferimento a casi di studio rilevanti, i meccanismi di inglobamento e cancellazione dei pattern rurali, e segnalate varie forme di discontinuità urbana, in una lettura per “generazioni” delle dinamiche di espansione, entro e tra le maglie del costruito, che invita a riformulare l’opposizione chiuso-aperto nei termini di compatto-disperso. La prospettiva da cui indagare la campagna urbana viene successivamente ricondotta ai riferimenti istituzionali e ai dispositivi tecnico-disciplinari che fanno da sfondo ad esperienze mature di trattamento del territorio aperto, comunali e di area vasta, che pongono in chiave problematica la risignificazione dello spazio periurbano e ed extraurbano di fronte a diversificate domande di paesaggio. Infine, con riferimento alle politiche e pratiche in corso, il lavoro tenta di riposizionare i principali interrogativi legati ai temi della sostenibilità. L’economia dell’Agro deve dimostrare una capacità competitiva con altre destinazioni dei suoli e con le rendite di attesa generate dalla macchina urbana che pongono a dura prova le forme tradizionali di regolamentazione. Si tratta di far sì che lo spazio agricolo e forestale, da sempre trascurato nelle politiche pubbliche, entri realmente nella categoria delle “infrastrutture pubbliche di natura”.