Application of a methodology for the sustainable development: the case study of the Provincia of Roma

Like in a paradox, urban-rural (periurban and rurban) spaces still represent an empty space to be filled within the laws and the models that physical and development planning are facing today, in Italy Indeed, it is paradoxical that, since 1942 (year of the first and still in force national town planning law), the urban-rural spaces have been dealt with as follows: • left over and economically marginal in the frame of socio-economic development plans (an important part of planning), even the traditional ones (first generation planning, only based on the land rent mechanism); • as empty spaces, pending to be filled up by an increasing urbanization, or eventually abandoned, because inaccessible to that; • as undifferentiated, because too wide and uniform in the organization system to make their central business core visible. Although this “big empty” is easy to ascribe to the functionalist culture – ruling until the eighties, structurally conditioned by the political and economic debate on the profit and the rent topics –, it is necessary to underline that other variables have played against a more accurate positioning of the urban-rural areas in the national planning process. As a starting point, we may call to mind both the results of the agrarian reform and its synthetic derivatives in the “Progetto 80”, the discontinuous action of the “Cassa per il Mezzogiorno”, the conflict between intensive and extensive production models, the temporal volatility of the planned European guidelines and the regional policies in respect of the urban or agricoltural development’s cycles, … And we could still go on for long. But, at this time, it is important to discuss and expand on two relationships’ levels: • to the town • to the environment It is just from the unsuccessful relationship to the first one (lack of urban entities as in the “Italian Mezzogiorno”, or too close and ambiguous dependence from them as in the case of the wide Central–Northern urban areas), that the progressive weakening of the environmental values derives. The periurban spaces are bearers of these values, so that this means to disappoint – in a traditional vision – the planning issues, as these are some of the parameters and inalienable characters of the complex regional space in which the territory is organized to dictate its own planning rules. On the other hand, in the discussion on regional periurban planning it is seldom possible to count on a true multi-scalar approach, which breaks down the indicators in relation to the geographical scale (regional, sub-regional, and local). In the same way, it seems difficult to distinguish types of periurban characters in areas which are very different among them, even if the periurban economies are today considered locally vital for the maintenance of productive systems that find no correspondence to stable socio-economic and settlement structures (like in the case of the Rome periurban/rurban area or Molise intermunicipal areas). In such situations, it is still possible to read the sequence of the conflict which precedes the integration: discontinuous human presence, concentrated in areas geo-morphologically and climatically not always favourable; absence of stable environmental protection planning in spite of the high regional degree of naturality; negation of a social and economical value of the environment by the local settlements communities. So, it is right to wonder what might be the future geoeconomic and geopolitic structure to be given to those urban systems where the attitude to a sustainable development based on the performance of periurban spaces seems to be, once again paradoxically, a limit for a balanced growth. Therefore, this research aims at two main goals: • To provide an operative contribution to the definition of the general or structural characters of the periurban economies in sub-regional area (intermunicipal scale, with particular reference to the Rome province) • To verify if types of periruban areas could be given an outstanding weight/role for the tuning of suitable development planning policies, and to what degree of innovation. This report aims at discussing urban-rural typologies in a perspective of planning for a vast provincial area, the Provincia of Rome, that, with its frameworks and powers of intervention, cannot neglect facing the “metropolitan district” issue, as one of the fundamental terms to be carefully considered when speaking of the Italian Capital city in a possible European federalist vision . The work, based on a research on subsidiarity typologies for new local and over-local development, tests a method that differs from the past ones, for the inclusion of new formulae and principles -in particular, sustainability- towards which the economic-territorial regionalisation is intended to be oriented. The same principles has prompted geo-economic research into the ESPON Programme, to assess ex-ante the impact that urban-rural system could have on the economic-territorial federalist organisation of Italy (Prezioso 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003). In fact, the assessment of the impacts of transforming the current regional monocentrism to equipotential polycentrism on a local level, provokes the question of the principles upon which the European community itself should model the system of local government (territorial planning of a large area) as well as under which conditions (governing regulations), and if current regulations are to guide the choice, as is the case in Italy, so that local communities maintain potential resources for future generations, though steering them towards progressive growth awareness. This paper deals with two questions concerning the general problem: - technical-formal, referring to techniques and procedures that are useful in identifying urban-rural areas and frameworks subsidiary to the demand for their organisation, hereby joining the geographical scale to the administrative level most appropriate for the government, as well as the organisation of the territory; - State-run and managerial, regulations and tools to be employed; an unavoidable condition to uphold economic choices that conform appropriately to the principle of sustainability within prescribed times; acting within the European context of research on the integration (that means transversal concentration including both horizontal and vertical concentrations), which is the driving mechanism for all of the different planning processes in progress. The Italian Research Group has considered the ESPON Programme as an important starting point, in particular by the Research Framework of the 1.1.2 Project, which financially supports research on endogenous solutions, by identifying the framework of geo-economic action of local governments in a large area (NUTS 3). In most cases in Italy, this coincides with the spaces of provincial action; the governing bodies alone are able to accomplish all of the instrumental stages that permit the unioning of the qualification and functionality of the spaces (intraregional or intermunicipal areas), which are co-ordinated toward a single, co-operative end, thus involving them in competition on a transnational level. The European Union and many administrative, provincial frameworks have found a meeting point in the search for new planning. Stakeholders, local boards, management, citizens/shareholders-clients in the territory and economy have already confirmed a real wish to overcome, whether literally or figuratively, the borders of their own areas of interest, in order not to leave the realisation of integration, as in the past, to already developed regions where the productive groundwork is firmer. For this purpose, many regions and boundaries have been created, with the univocity of conditions and the cohesion (or coherence) of the distinct units, i.e. regional interrelation, as the main criteria. This is intended as a visible aspect of integration or, rather, a political-economic-geographic work method that makes the realisation of objectives and projects possible because of a voluntary, spontaneous attitude, which, preceded by sharing common principles, manifests itself in planning/project agreements. National and European deliberations on the subject have shown that, at the root of individual experiences, there is an attempt to methodologically unify spaces that are environmentally and functionally different. By creating sub-systems that differ in their efficiency, mass and cohesion, an identical decision-making process (sustainability) tends to guide the management of diversely located, anthropic and physical resources. The layout varies from strategic planning experiences of large areas in progress or computed in recent years in Italy and Europe (Naples, Bari, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Barcelona, Lille), in which the interrelation as one of the planning issues has been derived from a coercive action (the plan of a hierarchical-functional network). In this perspective, the plan becomes the central and centralising place of a strong idea/project offer and it’s indifferent to the real demand and the “bottom up” organisation and development. In these cases, the limits of functional areas are already outlined in the way in which metropolitan, provincial and regional plans are presented (general-territorial or for co-ordination). Importance is attached to highlighting not only those elements that oppose integration and favour competitive co-operation (global competition), acted out on a political-commercial level for the propagation of entrepreneurial and common management models, but also entrepreneurial co-operation when geographical expansion of the integration processes requires regulation of the use of resources. Among the sectors that have assumed a greater weight in outlining integration limits in strategic planning, that of services for knowledge, information and communication infrastructures stands out. At first, the European Union (EU) contributed a structural role in starting up a cohesive dialogue in this regard, hereby presuming that the “best co-operation” (or good governance) among regions would only occur if property, people, capital and information cross a border to be received or supplied. This layout basically leads to the passage from one system to another and it is rather difficult to represent the updating value and perspective dynamics according to conventional urban planning, of which the plan is the instrument. In addition, there are so-called stable structural factors (high speed, data technology, technical and network resources, etc.), which do not necessarily produce coherent planning, even though a logical continuity exists between the integration process and integration product. The more the strategic and functional indicators were studied, broken down and updated to assimilate innovations, the more the territory moved away from the representation of the resource systems that had generated it and the common regulations that had sustained local demand (absence of governance, crisis of technical standards and regulations). On a local level, it is essential to identify elements that define the capacity or physical and political amplitude of the cohesion (e.g. the pertinent metropolitan territory).