responsabili: Francesco Musco

 

visiting professor: Francesc Muñoz, Profesor Titutar de Geografia Urbana

Departament de Geografia – Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

presenza: 3 mesi - da novembre 2013 a febbraio 2014

 

durata: 12 mesi 


termine previsto: 31 dicembre 2014


finanziamento:  15.000,00 euro


tipologia: call 2013 Dppac

fonte finanziamento: call 2013 Dppac – Linea di finanziamento 2 “Sostegno dell’attrattività internazionale”

 

descrizione del progetto di ricerca

 

Introduction: Main trends in the urban Mediterranean Europe regarding environmental and social efficiency.

Over recent decades many cities in the world have been facing urban global phenomena which have resulted in kind of widespread copy&pasted urban scenarios in many cities and urban regions. This urbanalization (Muñoz, 2010) has clearly shown impacts of globalization in local urban places.

Mediterranean cities have been historically considered as a very specific type of urban form and still are conceived as relatively untouched by these kind of global urban dynamics.

It is true that from the point of view of both energy efficiency and social efficiency the Mediterranean city does constitute a very peculiar urban scenario:

Firstly, considering issues concerning energy efficiency, Mediterranean cities define themselves by a very clear physical structure where compactness and built space contiguity results in a high level of urban density.

Secondly, with regards to social efficiency, Mediterranean cities define themselves by some key issues guaranteeing urban intensity. In this sense, the important presence of both inhabitants and users is a direct result of the mixture of uses of the land, activities and urban functions close enough together in space. Thus, short distances between different uses of land, activities and urban functions also intensify urban life.

This combination of a background defined by urban density and a foreground defined by urban intensity results in a high urban complexity environment and synthesizes quite well the values of the Mediterranean

city urban image and structure.

However, despite common thinking, Mediterranean cities have not remained untouched by the global dynamics that we can summarize with the idea of urbanalization. The extension of urban sprawl is maybe the best example of this repetition of urban patterns traditionally understood as belonging to other urban traditions such as the American city.

It is here we find a very interesting paradox: as the majority of urban regions traditionally experimenting with urban sprawl have been trying to intensify the density conditions of their urban spaces, European Mediterranean cities –already ‘densified’ and ‘intensified’– have been facing a very dramatic change due to the fact of the unexpected regional development of urban sprawl.

 

Objectives: evaluating the efficiency of the urban form in European Mediterranean cities.

The results of these processes of urban and metropolitan change reveal a much more complex structure in Mediterranean cities today as well as important risks regarding future urban sustainability and both environmental and social efficiency. More specifically, considering the urban regional structure in European Mediterranean cities at the present moment, we can distinguish at least three different typologies of urban spaces where urban density, urban intensity, energy efficiency and social efficiency are showing different balances and results:

Firstly, the compact city, characterized by the canonic and archetypical physical features of the traditional European Mediterranean urban environments and by the urban intensity which results of the concentration of morphological and functional elements defining the urban.

Secondly, the continuous city, characterized by the relative dissolution of these former archetypical physical features but also by the maintenance of the main elements defining urban intensity.

Finally, the discontinuous city, characterized by the absolute dissolution of both the former archetypical physical features of the European Mediterranean urban environments and their conditions for guaranteeing urban intensity. In this sense, regional urban sprawl represents a very challenging scenario where many policies and formulas for the urban planning of the compact city, traditionally based on the enhancement of Page 93 of 133 physical density and compactness, clash with the harsh reality of low density patterns and the absence of urban intensity.

Considering this theoretical approach, the research project would suggest the analysis of four main parameters taking into consideration at least two main issues when analyzing each of them:

• Physical urban density:

- Urban compactness of the bult environment

- Physical contiguity of the built environment

- Sinergies between density and mitigation effects

• Urban intensity:

- Diversity of urban functions

- Sustainability of urban functions

- Sinergies between urban functions

• Energy efficiency/Mitigation to climate change:

- Management of the energy flows (energy servers)

- Innovation in energy management and efficiency (energy drivers)

- Improvement in urban resilience and mitigation to climate change

• Social efficiency:

- Conditions for social cohesion

- Conditions for social creativity

- Social environmental consciousness.

 

These four main parameters and related issues will be evaluated in different urban scenarios representing the compact city, the continuous city and the discontinuous city in different European urban areas for summarizing the state of the art regarding the efficiency of the urban form in the European Mediterranean cities.