An Axiology of Residual Green Urban Areas

Maria Rosa Trovato

doi:10.3390/environments8060053

Abstract

Our cities are often characterised by a complex, ungrammatical articulation of spaces, volumes, intended uses, and values. The residual green urban areas are representative of a low level or absence of order, but above all, of functions and values. The study proposes a new methodological and operational approach to the rehabilitation of green residual urban areas, participatory type that can generate a new order between values, functions and actors, to mediate private and public needs, to promote new forms of responsibility and thus to implement some of the priority objectives set out in the 2030 Agenda. The operational tools supporting the approach are the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), public and private partnership (PPP) and crowdfunding. This approach supported the selection of the project and the creation of a budget with public and private funding to support the participatory rehabilitation of a residual green urban area in the municipality of Acireale. The amount of funding identified largely covers rehabilitation costs. The issue of the quality and quantity of urban greenery is crucial for the sustainability and resilience of cities to climate change. Rehabilitation of remaining urban green areas is an opportunity to meet the new needs of green areas, supporting communities in this new challenge.

Highlights

Environments 2021, 8, 53. https://The urban fabric of our cities is often marked by a complex and grammatically incorrect articulation of the spaces, volumes, functions, relationships, and values that combine to create an urban landscape that is not able to communicate and inform, and that is not capable of reproducing itself
A walk in our cities reveals the presence of residual green urban areas that are often degraded and potentially dangerous, leading one to reflect on the factors that have determined the state of these areas
To accept that areas that are undeveloped and guaranteed clear according to the destination specified by the planning instruments, can be considered as marginal, be excluded from the design of the city, and be devoid of value and function [128,129,130], at a time when the availability of urban green areas is scarce, especially in contexts in which the minimum requirement for these types of areas are not met for whole neighbourhoods and even cities in which there is an ever growing demand/need for them, and in which there is a growing awareness of the ecosystem services they provide and; of their contribution to sustainability [131]

Summary

Introduction

Environments 2021, 8, 53. https://The urban fabric of our cities is often marked by a complex and grammatically incorrect articulation of the spaces, volumes, functions, relationships, and values that combine to create an urban landscape that is not able to communicate and inform, and that is not capable of reproducing itself. An urban landscape which has no rules, or one that results from exceptions or lack of implementation of rules, is often characterised by asymmetries that are generated by the absence or inappropriate planning and management, or by the absence or reduced perception of values [1,2,3,4,5]. In such a scenario, the planning process must be aimed at defining a new order for the city system. A neg-entropic development of the city is the only one capable of generating a new harmonious order on the basis of new or unspoken values and functions [9,10,11,12]

Methods

Results

Conclusion