The Horizontal Metropolis : Issues and Challenges for a New Urban Ecology

Despite the growing presence of concrete design explorations capable
of fully tackling the phenomenon of urban dispersion, and evermore lively signs of
interest from public administration, the general sensation still seems to be that of a
“lack of operational visions”, a dearth of methods able to turn the incremental
growth of such territories “into a catalyst for the production of new living qualities”
(Declerck). In many cases in fact, in the face of the gradual urbanization of vast,
originally agricultural, territories, the most common approach is that of stiffening
planning prescriptions and strategies with the aim of directing growth towards the
reinforcement of major metropolitan areas, with the danger of gradually diverting
attention from the “rest of the territory” and producing territorial-socio-economic
marginality.