ABSTRACT
Speaking about the ‘city’ is getting harder and harder. This is not just because
contemporary cities have reached levels of extreme complexity, but because the
notion of ‘city’ itself is facing a crisis never encountered before. Can a complex
network of streets, buildings and green areas, of slums and glamorous commercial
zones be considered a city just because it hosts a large number of people? This
question has engaged an extremely large number of architects, planners and
sociologists in trying to figure out how contemporary urban space is evolving, and
how the instruments and the practice to deal with it should evolve as well. A
common feeling of inadequacy has in fact become the base of a wide debate about
the present and the future of cities, and many are questioning the efficiency of the
existing approaches used to plan, design and manage a town:
Having taken on board the theme of the crisis of planning, whether this is true or
supposed, we have seen as useful, or even necessary, to verify whether the traditional
planning instruments are still able to fulfil the needs of cities that are seeking their lost
identity or looking for a brand new one (Lo Piccolo, 1995, p.19) [translation by author].
