Urban natures. Renaturing the (post)industrial city: the case of Brescia.
Marco TONONI, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy
Antonella PIETTA, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy
The research examines the process of reintroducing nature into the urban environment through the perspectives of urban political ecology and social nature. One of the aims of this approach is to reconstruct the interaction between city and nature, overcoming the dichotomy characterised them in the last decades. In particular, the analysis investigates the urbanization of nature, starting from the idea that it is based on interconnected socio-ecological processes. The presentation reviews some urban theories from the early twentieth century dealing with the role played by nature in the different phases of urban development with reference to the (post)industrial city. The second part focuses on the Brescia urban area, an Italian (post)industrial city, to evaluate how the city has been (re)naturalized. Two case studies demonstrate the properties of urban natures in terms of socio-ecological relations, inequalities and conflicts. The first is a dismissed industrial site. It is an example of Brescia’s industrial past: the urban metabolism exploits nature for the production of chemical products, generating environmental and health consequences. Today this is an area of urban regeneration where sustainability and resilience represent the core of the new strategy of development. The second is a park in a suburban area interested by dismissed quarries. Until some years ago this area was characterised by the exploitation of gravel mining and now it is becoming a suburban park through a process driven by the population. The local community fought for many years to obtain the institution of the “Quarry Park" and improve its own wellbeing in ecological and health terms as well as adapting to the changing climate. These are two interesting examples of the evolution of urban natures focusing on how urban communities are addressing a socio-ecological transition changing the cultural approach to urban spaces through the consideration of sustainability and climate change issues.
Mots clés : urban nature|urban political ecology|sustainability| socio-ecological transition|climate change
A103803MT