Grandi polarità interregionali del commercio e del tempo libero nell'area padana

Abstract

- Large shopping centres, which are often integrated in out-oftown complexes with sports or leisure activities (i.e. theme parks or multiplexes) constitute a type of megastructure which involves high land use, both directly occupied by the buildings and for roads and car parks. A prerequisite for the existence and profitability of these commercial megastructures is, in fact, the size of their ‘catchment basin', which in turn is dependent on the efficiency of transport infrastructures. This article highlights the problems relating to the relation ship between large shopping centres on the one hand and land use on the other, raising questions over how to go beyond settlement models based exclusively on road transport, on the self-referential nature architectural and micro urban systems and on predominance given to the locally-based location decisions against the management of externalities on a supra-local scale.