LIBRI DI CORINNA MORANDI

Looking at Italian smart city projects, this article suggests a theoretical reflection about potentials for an innovative regional cohesiveness condition provided by the exploitation of material and immaterial networks. On this occasion, it presents the outcomes achieved by a research project about the Milan-Turin smart region, that aims at implementing smartness not only in main urban nodes, but also in in-between and non-urban spaces, often marginalized. The project outlines a system of Urban Digital Nodes, which (inspired by a ‘human’ a roach) combine traditional and digital services by referring to specific features and needs of single places and of their users. Conclusions highlight the human smartness potentials and challenges at the regional scale, also in relation to the current debate about the Italian national urban agenda

I lavori raccolti nel testo ripropongono la visione ampia, variegata e complessa propria delle scienze regionali. Il valore aggiunto di questa disciplina è la sua capacità di indagini sia verticali che orizzontali che pongono al centro il territorio e le sue differenti scale relazionali. Il volume contribuisce a definire le coordinate entro cui si collocano le nuove sfide competitive e ripercorre il metodo analitico delle scienze regionali restituendo una visione d’insieme del territorio alla scala micro, meso e macro regionale.

The paper gives an operational and academic report on the research project entitled ‘Urban regeneration, tradition and innovation: the Milanese Mesopotamia’, carried out in partnership with Mesopotamia Milanese, an association founded in 2008 by businesses located in the area that lies between the Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Pavese canals to encourage and influence the process of urban regeneration in the area enclosed between these two historically famous canals. The paper focuses on urban regeneration from the ‘bottom up’, a subject around which a variety of parties are potentially interested in interacting and exchanging resources. The conclusions offer reflections on future outcomes of the process described, starting from the guidelines recommended by the City Council which came to power in Milan in 2011.

La figura e la multiforme attività professionale di Lorenzo Forges Davanzati, architetto milanese, animato da una curiosità intellettuale che lo ha avvicinato a tutti i campi riconducibili al concetto e all’attività di progettazione, dalle arti al design. Il volume intende tracciare il percorso di questo singolare professionista che, sulla scorta di una solida cultura umanistica, ha perseguito l’obiettivo di coniugare le risorse offerte dalle nuove tecnologie con la tradizione storica dell’architettura.

Public policies and public-private sector networking to improve urban commerce - Commerce plays a social protection role and can give quality to a city and a community or subtract from it and attribute meaning and character to places or render them banal in a standardised landscape. Intervention to improve shops and businesses open to the public can support more general urban regeneration processes and may be implemented through public policies. One interesting case for reference is that of the Business Improvement Districts (BID), which include that of Paddington in London. The Region of Lombardy has recently organised a competition for funding for projects which improve commercial activities and public establishments in geographical areas identified as business districts (urban or more regional). The organiser of the project which involves businesses and the local context they are set in is the municipality, which, however, is obliged to apply in partnership with at least that association which represents most of the businesses operating in commerce. The mix of commerce, crafts and innovative service industries is a specific trait of the Milan metropolitan area which is described as a possible area in which to activate urban regeneration processes.