ABSTRACT
Milan brands itself as the largest smart city in Europe, openly embracing eco-urbanism as a development modus operandum. Between 2004 and 2015, Milan completed Porta Nuova, its largest re-urbanization project to date, prioritizing urban greening and sustainability as symbolized by the new Vertical Forest (Bosco Verticale in Italian) skyscrapers. But activists from Milan’s centri sociali (social centers) and resident groups have strongly opposed the self-branded green project, criticizing the privatization of a public park and denouncing prohibitively high rents. According to them, Porta Nuova and its Vertical Forests illustrate a top-down privatization project that leads to exclusion and gentrification. In response, residents and activist groups have developed a public community garden in the same neighborhood that serves as a new model for democratic horizontal urban greening.
Keywords
the urban development pattern of the city and neighborhood: green design and urbanism; smart city, urban redevelopment and revitalization; abundance of abandoned or poor-quality housing
the urban greening of the city and/or neighborhood: Vertical Forest; green space redevelopment; fights over community gardens; community mobilization for public green spaces
the inequalities at stake: green privatization, luxury housing, green privilege; lack of government response for inclusive and equitable greening
