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Internet:
a new showcase
by Patrizia Gabellini and Giovanni Ginocchini
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The planetary character of territorial problems and the trans-scalar
articulation of programs, policies and projects prompts reflection
on the "sources" and "authors" of a relevant representation of
themes related to the culture of the city. In fact, not only does
it seem highly unlikely that there will ever be a synthesis, but
even that there individual scholars will ever succeed in recreating
an image of the city in the round, an achievement to equal Lewis
Mumford's famous book The Culture of Cities.
If the collaboration between researchers from different backgrounds
and using different disciplinary equipment has to be recognized
as both a fact and at the same time a "practical necessity" for
any project of urban and territorial research, we could add that
one of the resources to be activated is a widespread specialist
knowledge, which now finds more direct channels of expression.
The number of authors has, in fact, multiplied to a remarkable
degree and their culture has become highly differentiated, forming
a problem within the problem: that of the sources from which to
draw descriptions, interpretations and projections
Considerations of this kind, which can also be expressed as a
general concern with our inadequacy before the tasks of contemporary
research and the need to refine our sensibility, require a reconsideration
of the instruments of communication.
Planum is an unusual review, not because it is presented
on Internet (other reviews in the sector have opted for a double
version - paper and digital - and some have created purely digital
editions), but because the reason for its foundation lies in the
specifics of communication on the Web and relies on it to delineate
its profile. Though it has parts that connote it as a journal,
Planum is not reducible to one. It aims to be both a portal and
an archive, because it proposes to intercept the fluid, changing
world of internet, where the circulation and intersection of information,
which appears to be a distinctive feature of the contemporary
world, are taken to an extreme; and also because it intends to
contribute to the construction of databases searchable together,
that will contain and continually circulate memory, give depth
to current information, seeking its most remote and subtle roots.
Ultimately, Planum has been created because it considers
Internet a new, indispensable showcase to be enriched, qualified
and made accessible.
The opportunity provided by the international convention on The
New Culture of Cities. Territorial Transformations and the Impact
on Society,
promoted by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in collaboration
with the Italian Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche),
held at Rome 5-7 November 2002, was taken to start using this
source systematically, beginning with the organization of the
theme presented by the conference organizers, as well as with
the characteristics of Planum. This means that ideas
were sought on the Net for some of the subjects chosen for the
convention (New Towns and Garden Cities, mega-cities, public spaces);
in the case of others we intervened by reinterpreting them through
the key words that made it possible to search Planum's
database. Then we restored the results of a first assessment of
the over 5000 sites reviewed in "Webcompass", together with a
selection of recent or forthcoming international initiatives announced
in the "News" section. For the latter we favoured a territorial
distribution, with the aim of representing the pervasiveness of
the topics under discussion, their global character.
The number of pages devoted to the News and Webcompass sections
makes it possible to identify certain significant concentrations
of topics concerning the prevalent ways of perceiving and representing
the characteristics of this present. Sustainability
(in its different meanings progressively identified), density
and sprawl, mobility: these are
closely interrelated phenomena that catalyse attention and concern.
Governance, community
participation , the creation of networks:
these can be seen as strategies useful for coping with the problems.
The marketing and defence
of the cultural heritage seems to embody
two different orientations, opposed and extreme, of present-day
culture that suggest and foster methods for the transformation
of cities and territories.
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Sustainability
Sustainability is certainly the most widely used term to
express the issues that affect the use of the contemporary environment,
both built and unbuilt: it is a term that has spread beyond the
boundaries of scientific debate and in its migration from one discipline
to another has been subjected to important extensions and clarifications.
For this reason it was considered appropriate to subtitle the numerous
initiatives on this theme documented by Planum: economic sustainability
and regional development, economic sustainability and energy sources,
sustainability in the management of costs and waters, sustainability
and social equity. Because of the number of high-quality sites that
can be found using this keyword, we have confined ourselves to signalling
two databases.
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Download
Sustainability
slides (.pdf)
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Download
Densification and diffusion
slides (.pdf)
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Densification and diffusion
Densification and diffusion of development are phenomena
characteristic of urban growth, and yet they do not appear among
those directly affected by the studies organized in events and embodied
in the sites for the international debate. A first hypothesis in
this respect is that the theme is dealt with transversely, hence
that the typically territorial and phenomenic dimension remains
in the background. This could be related to the dominant concept
of planning as shifted towards aspatial factors, and so tending
to favour other manifestations of growth. An investigation of the
database of the reviews present in the "Journals" section of Planum
and among the themes most widely discussed in the "Topics" section
reveals the presence of a number of experts who deal specifically
with them. |
Urban mobility and transport
The topic of urban mobility and transport is perhaps the
theme with the broadest geographical scope. In Europe as in Asia,
discussion centres on underground railways (subways) and tram lines,
road links, ways of regulating traffic, high-speed trains, etc.,
as well as the urban and territorial transformations bound up with
infrastructures of this kind. Consideration of the problems connected
with the consumption of energy for transport brings us back to the
issue of sustainability, and consideration of the many dimensions
of accessibility affects topics connected with the differences in
social opportunities and the temporal uncertainty of new lifestyles.
Here again we find a complex thematic network linking the economy,
society and the territory.
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Download
Urban mobility and transport slides (.pdf)
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Download
Governance
slides (.pdf)
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Governance
The theme of governance, like the closely related issue of
sustainability (the governance necessary to guarantee sustainability),
is related to the phenomena of globalization: in particular it is
related to the regulation of pluri-actorial relationships within
an outstandingly dilated and complex universe. It also varies also
within local contexts, where complexity and conflicts have become
part of everyday life. The events selected refer to this twofold
register of the theme. |
Community planning
and community participation
Community planning and community participation do not have
the same meaning, but above all their meanings change with the contexts
in which these terms are used. In general, however, the "local community"
is now being credited with an increasingly important role in the
life of the city. This involvement may result in a greater social
cohesion, with the inclusion of the disadvantaged (children, the
old, immigrants) and more effective planning, but it may also foster
forms of (self-)isolation, the rejection of whatever comes from
outside, essentially defensive attitudes (as in the case of Los
Angeles' "gated communities"). However, this is the other face of
globalisation, a response to phenomena that trigger disruption,
taking on new forms compared with those of the modern industrial
city.
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Download
Community slides (.pdf)
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Download
Networks slides (.pdf)
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Networks
A different answer to the difficulties of globalisation comes
from the construction of networks of relationships on different
scales: networks between regions, between cities, between subjects
working in the same local context or sharing the same objectives.
Working on relationships, making full use of technology, is perhaps
one of the strategic options that Lewis Mumford would define as
"dominant" in our age, those that "focus the present-day forces
destined to success". |
Marketing
A theme that made a deep impression in the closing decades
of the last century was that of competition, urban marketing in
its different possible forms. This was a strong reaction on the
part of local administrators to post-industrial decline, the commitment
to emerge and affirm one's own role and prerogatives with the object
of exploiting existing resources and creating new ones. This theme
also applies to the cultural legacy and becomes particularly significant
in the case of small towns. It prompts a critical reflection not
just on the process of standardization but also on the lack of moderation
that sometimes becomes a feature of the quest for an identity and
an image.
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Download
Marketing
slides (.pdf)
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Download
Cultural heritage
slides (.pdf)
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Cultural heritage
The theme of the cultural legacy, whose relevance signals
a profound and widespread concern with the loss of identity and
historical memory, may, on the one hand, be confused with that of
marketing, when the objective of economic exploitation prevails,
and on the other may subtend attitudes that resist all innovation.
An interesting approach emerged from the Barcelona Forum, which
recognised this as a fertile terrain for creating the foundations
of a new and peaceful co-existence between peoples. |
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