societyas participatory

Edinburgh lectures
October 1st, 2010

Alberto Magnaghi

The urban bioregion

 The issue

Rebuilding a new European Idea of the

urbanity (URBANITE’, Choay) against
oximora of contemporary urbanization
like “sprawl city”, “ville èparpillée”,
“edge city”, “conurbation”,
“metropolitan area”, “città diffusa”,
“città infinita”

The contemporary urbanization is a

Post –urban era: the conurbation of central Tuscany from Florence to
Pisa
Post –urban era

New
powerties in
China
Post-urban
era

Los Angeles:
serial
urbanisation
Sprawl in north-eastern Italy: the urbanization of
countryside
The
Triennale
exibition,
Milan

The “città
infinita”
(Bonomi e
Abruzzese
2004)
Historical relations between river and
its territory:
Arno river, Villa Ambrogiana, Tuscany
Post-urban
era:
relations
between
river and its
territory

Factory
sheds along
the river
Arno
(Tuscany)
Post urban era

The megacity
of the
southern
world

Slums, super-
slums and
skiscrapers
Does the post-urban era
evidenciate a neotechnic order ?
Are we moving from kacotopia to
eutopia (Geddes) ?

• Is this a “neotechnic order”?

• Is this “Public conservation of resources”?
• Is this “Beauty of the city”?
• Is this “Constructive conservation of nature’s order
and beauty towards the healt of cities”?
• Is this evolution “from war to peace” order?

how can we rethink the city towards

“eutopia”?
Starting again from Geddes “Valley Section”
suggestions
 The “Valley Section”
suggestions
• Place, work, people: co-evolution
• Peculiarity and uniqueness of each
region and city
• Reliefs and contours to discover the
evolutionary relations (nature and
culture) at work in every region
• Coevolution along time, from the
“Regional Origins”, as a guide for
rediscovering the “bioregion” concept
Rediscovering the bioregion concept is the base
for “Rethinking the city” in relation to the
contemporary urbanization context

The “territorialist school” has reframed and

developed the concept of bioregion within
“local self-sustainable development” theory
‘
 Local self-sustainable
• development
new relationship of co-evolutionpromotes
between local
inhabitants/producers and the regional territory;
• the local community “sustains itself”; it ensures that
natural environment can sustain it in its action;
• Closing local cycles : water, food, energy, wastes to
reduce the ecological footprint
• Founding local economic systems on valorization of
territorial and landscape heritage
• Food sovereignty
• Promoting new peasantries to produce common goods
(town-country pact)
• rethinking the urbanity (city of villages, city of cities,
bioregions)
 LONG-LASTING TERRITORIAL MARKS INNOVATIVE
AND
INSURGENT
ENERGIES
COGNITIVE PHYSICAL

Envi- Socio- Making long- environme Appr- Wide

ronmental cultural lasting ntal neo- opriate representt
and
know- Model physical ecosy- Techno- aion of
ledge producing structures stems logies social
knowledge actors
of
social
actors

“MILIEU” Territorial type”

LANDSCAPE

TERRITORIAL STATUTE OF
HERITAGE PLACES

STRATEGIC SCENARIO Territorial design

Evaluation models Sectorial plans, projects Participation and

and policies negociation arenas

Integrated policies and

projects

SELF-SUSTAINABLE
SELF SUSTAINABLELOCAL
LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
DEVELOPMENT
(GIVING
(GIVING NEW
NEW BIRTH
BIRTH OF TO
THETHE PLACE)
PLACE)
 description,interpretation,
representation
of long lasting territorial heritage
Territorial ‘heritage’: environment, landscape, urban features,
local knowledge, culture and crafts in its unique character as a
living entity.

Common knowledge
• Place consciousness
• Cognitives and Community maps
Expert knowledge
 
• Territorial heritage atlas:
• Territorialisation process
 Place consciousness
Post-Fordism: the contradiction between uniformity, destruction of cultures,
polarization and social fragmentation on one hand, and the affirmation of
differences, diversities, cultural uniqueness and social re-composition on
the other.
Place consciousness is
consciousness, aquired by inhabitants through a cultural growth
process, of the heritage value of common goods (material and
relationals), as basic elements needed for reproducing individual
and collective life, both biological and cultural.
Place cosciousness is
the condition for producing various development models based on
appropriation and use of resources by producers-inhabitants,
different social production relations referring to new statutes of
self-employed labor, different forms of direct democracy pacts,
and different strategic sectors of the economy.
.
 cognitive and community maps
• Risk maps (Latin America)
• Cognitive maps (K. Lynch)
• Urban participatory design experiences
• community mapping
• the “Common ground” network
• parish maps
• parish plan (Countryside agency)
• In Italy: the “Mappe di comunità” : ecomusei, piani paesaggistici,
organizzazione partecipata degli statuti del territorio, quadri conoscitivi
dei “mondi di vita” (Convenzione Europea del Paesaggio (2000).
• http://www.england-in-particular.info/maplist.html
• Clifford, S. and King A. (1996). From Place to Place: Maps and Parish
Maps. London: Common Ground
• Leslie K.(2001) (eds), Mapping the millennium. The west Sussex
millennium parish maps project, Selsey press ltd., Selsey
• www.mondi locali .it
• www.paesaggio.regione.puglia.it.it
• www.comune.montespertoli.fi.it
 Representacion de la
identidad patrimonial

A sense
of place
West
Sussex
Parish
Maps

Kim Leslie
(2006)
Piano
Paesaggistic
o Territoriale
della regione
Puglia
(Magnaghi2010)

Ecomuseum
and
community
Maps
 The representation of
territorial heritage
Expert knowledge
• The territorialization process
(cognitive and material signes)
• Territorial morpho-types and figures
(landscape, heritage atlas)
 Il Paesaggio come esito dei processi TDR

Territoriali
zing
process
Long term
material
sediments

Territorializa
tion
De-
territorialisat
ion
Re-
territorializat
ion

(Cycle DTR,
Magnaghi
1995))
Representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany
(Poli, Tofanelli 2005)
representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany
(Poli, Tofanelli 2005)
representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany
(Poli, Tofanelli 2005
representation of territorialisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany
(Poli, Tofanelli 2005
representation of territorialising process : the Montalbano Tuscany

(Poli, Tofanelli 2005

representation of territorialisisation process : the Montalbano Tuscany Territorial
morpho-types and figures (lanscape) (Poli, Tofanelli 2005)
 Heritage’s Atlas/Gargano Puglia: three phasesTDR
Piano Paesaggistico Regione Puglia (Magnaghi 2010)
3.2.4 La struttura di lunga durata dei processi di territorializzazione
Heritage’s Atlas/Gargano Puglia: Roman
civilization
Territorial heritage: landscape characters
(Piano paesaggistico della Regione Puglia, Magnaghi 2010)
 Second step
the statute of places
The statute of places fix the rules of territorial
and urban design to increase the territorial
heritage value
Its components are:
• Place specific landscape characters
(territorial Figures)
• Structural invariants
• Preservation degree of invariants
• Rules for riproducing structural invariants
Chianti, Tuscany: historical lanscape
Representacion de la identidad patrimonial
structure

zini
Chianti, Tuscany: the representation of structural
invariants (statutarian rules)
(Zini 2006)
• Val di
Cornia Representacion de la
identidad patrimonial

(Tuscany)

• Territorial
figure:
morpho-
typological
structures
and
statutarian
rules

(Magnaghi,
Fantini, 1995)
• Val di Cornia, Tuscany: territorial figure (details)

Representacion de la
identidad patrimonial
 Territorial
l
Plan of
Prato’s
Province
(Magnaghi
2003)

Territorial
heritage:
morpho-
typological
structures
and
statutarian
rules
Territorial morpho-types (statutarian
rules)
Piano paesaggistico della Regione Puglia (Magnaghi,
Carta 2010)
Figura territoriale dell’Altopiano di
Manfredonia
Territorial figures: Master Plan for the
Arno river park (Magnaghi, Carta
Representacion de la2009)
identidad patrimonial
river-territory structural relations
Master Plan of Arno’s park (Magnaghi
Representacion 2009)
de la identidad patrimonial
 Third step
Strategic scenarios (Visions for the design
of future bioregion)
• Putting into value territorial,
environmental and landscape heritage
• Conditioning territorial design to follow
each place’s statutarian rules
• Organising social and economic actors
and inhabitants for the plan’s social
production
 Vision
From conurbation to City of villages ;
From metropolitan area to City of cities:
from hierarchical region to Urban bioregion
“Ideally he sees a society as made up of villages, and cities
composed of villages-like borougs- grouped into effective
bioregions, each with its own local identity and traditions-
cooperating as much as possible with each other. The villages
would form cohesive communities, which means above all that
their members would be bound to each other by a set of
reciprocal obligations, as was always the case in traditional
societies. They cannot be made up of people who seek only
their personal interests, as is the case in the atomized society
in which most of us live today”.

Edward Goldsmith (preface of “the urban village”)

 City of villages
• Destructuring contemporary urbanization
• Rescue historical urban and neighborhood
identities
• Toponymes, local cultures
• Landscapes
• Languages
• Morphotypes
• Arts and crafts, as well as industrial knowledge
 city of communities
The greater London plan (Abercrombee 1942); the city of
villages (Livingstone 2002) Ciudad de Villajes
 Ciudad de villajes

From the
monocentric
conurbation
(anti-city)

to the city of
communities
(POLIFUNCTIONAL
CENTERS
AND URBAN
FUNCTIONS
INTEGRATES)

Leon Krier (2000)

 Ciudad
de Villajes

from the
monocentri
c industrial
city
to the
polycentric
integrate
City of
villages

(BRESCIA (italy)
Magnaghi, Tisi,
1985)
Monocentric zoning Polycentric
Ciudad de Villajes
integrated zoning
 Ciudad de Villajes

Territorial heritage: urban, social,

environmental, cultural identities
Brescia:The city of recomposed
villages Ciudad de Villajes
Visalia: the city of villages Città di villaggi
(Crawford 2005)
Visalia: the city of villages
Città di villaggi
(Crawford 2005)
Urban identities for a city of
villages Ciudad de Villajes

( La Spezia, Virgilio 2005)

 City of cities
• Non hierarchical urban networks
• Subsidiarity and complementarity
• Territorial citizenship
• Environmental steady state
• Landscape quality
• Quality of life
 a city of small towns’ design
Bormida Valley, Piedmont (Magnaghi, Vitone 2000)
Ciudad de
ciudades
 Ciudad de
ciudades

Polycentric
city of Vallo
di Diano
(Cilento)

(Portoghesi 1992)
 Polycentric network
The rule of University in the local
development

Patrick Geddes: Perth as Metropolitan

University
(The city of Perth as hub of five town
network )
 Origins of university-region relationship in
P. Geddes, Report of Indore
• The time of reconstruction, both educational and general, is now seen to be
opening in cities and universities alike. These can no longer be considered
separately, as has been customary during the decline of both, ad as has
become habitual to minds formed amid this decline…. But the call is now no
longer either merely to action or to thought; but to both together, in their
alternation and interaction.
For the city cannot be renewed without re-awakening the life of thought: in
creative ideals and images no less thajn ideas, syntheses and philosophies.
For thought must recall the vital elements of all regions, arts and
literatures, no less than of the sciences, comprehending man and nature.
This is the life of the true university. Hence to revive it needs more than
mere 'university reform'. To be reformed, it must be born of the city and of
her travail. [...] Thought and action at their highest are thus the
complemental energies of humanity in evolving its varied communities.
University-City and City-University will thus be increasingly identified. Our
City of Thought has become the City of Deed.“
•
 Regional university
Hierarchic model reticular
model

Ciudad de
ciudades
Design for a regional University network system
(Fanfano 2001) Ciudad de
ciudades
 The urban bioregion
• Bioregion (Latin bios-regere)
• Ecologist meaning Berg [1978,1990] , Sale [1985], Todd [1989];
• socio-ecological and municipalist meaning, Bookchin [1974],
• Bio-economics of de-growth , Latouche [2008].

• Our “territorialist” meaning main references:

• Ecological geography , Vidal De la Blache [2008]
• Regional Planning Association of America [1923],
• bio-anthropocentric definition of “Valley section”, Geddes [1915],
• “human community region” ,Mumford [1963];
• Territorial ecosystem , Saragosa [2005]
• bioregione urbana, Magnaghi, 2010
 Urban Bioregion
The new Urban Bioregion is made by an ensemble of self-
sustainable local systems, on their turn organized into
little and medium city grapes, each one in ecological,
economic and social equilibrium within their territory.
These non-hierarchical networks are characterized by an
effort towards the local closing of their water, food,
wastes, and energy cycles; attributing to “new peasants”
both hydro geological safeguard and environmental,
landscape, urban regeneration functions.
The new Urban Bioregion requires a territorial organization
able to reproduce its life cycles, rising urban and regional
living quality, harmonising productive, social,
environmental , cultural and aesthetic factors in the
production of lasting wealth.
 town-country-side pact
Geddes: “make the field gain on the street,
not merely the street gain on the field”
 Designing the bioregion open spaces. The
multifunctional role of agricolture
• the agricultural producer: from producer of goods destined to go on the
market to producer of goods destined for the common good (through hydro-
geological safeguarding, the reclaiming of land and the realignment of
environmental systems and urban suburbs, the valuing of landscape, the
development of the economy on a local bases - transformation, tourism amid
agricultural settings, craftsmanship, etc.)
• When the local inhabitant cum agricultural producer turns back to traditional
agricultural know-how and in doing so creates a lasting increase in fertility
(and is thus in tune with the production of common good) he comes out of his
isolation as an individual with his eye on the market, and is in fact co-
operating in the building of new sociality, of a new town-country relationship.
This new relationship hands the centre stage back to the rural areas in the
form of valuing the importance of the territory and the environment through
the production of common public goods to be shared by all.
A design of Milan bio-region
historical evolution of urbanization:1888-1990
The design of Milan bio-region
(Magnaghi 1995-2000)
 The design of Milan bio-region :
Olona river’s contract (Magnaghi 2002)
 The design of Milan bio-region
Polycentric city of vimercatese (Ferraresi 2007)
u
PPTR Regione Puglia: town-country Pact
 Urban bioregion of Central Tuscany
(Magnaghi 2010):
historical heritage and statute of places

Il patrimonio territoriale
 Urban bioregion of Central tuscany: the
urban sprawl

CLC 1990 - 2000

Urban bioregion of Central tuscany:
urbanization forecasts at 2055 (MOSUS model of EU : www.mosus.net)

Zone urbanizzate
Seminativi
Zone agricole eterogenee
Colture permanenti
Aree boscate
 Urban bioregion of Central tuscany
Historical identity o the cities: valley connexions whit the planes

Historical identity o the cities: valley

connexions whit the planes
 Urban bioregion of Central tuscany
o
rebuilding environmental and functional relations
plain-hill-mountain
f
C
e
n
t
r
a
l
t
u
s
c
a
n
Urban bioregion of Central tuscany:patto città campagna
the green core of polycentric bioregion (Mag naghi 2 010
La bioregion urbana
Le patrimoine environnemental: la connexion du
green core avec le parc du fleuve Arno
La bioregion urbana
A new-old form
of planning:

exploring the
Arno river on
horses, bikes and
boats to define
objectives for
action