Introduction

Research Background

Malagrotta landfill in Province of Rome

Source: photo made by the author

In the 19th century, due to the fast urbanisation process there was a need to protect the open spaces around the city, so ‘Greenbelt’ concept appeared, such as in the case of London (1947).

The functioning of cities and landscape have since then changed, reason why contemporary concepts of landscape protection are more in favour of promoting multi-functional sustainable uses rather than just protection policies (Brandt, 2003)

This is why we can say that the Peri-Urban fringe has somehow moved from Greenbelt to Multi-Functional Landscape.

The peri-urban landscape1 presents scattered and fragmented land uses that often are the addition of functions that are not wanted in more urbanised areas.

Although part of the Functional Urban Areas (FUA), the peri-urban landscape is often arching over different administrative boundaries, governed by institutions that often have difficulty in collaborating with each other (Sellers, 2002).

For these reasons this landscape often appears to be abandoned, underutilised and with portions of land often waiting for the land value to rise in order to build on them.

These open spaces that are so close to the urban cores have a great environmental potential that is often not developed in great part because of inefficiencies in the metropolitan governance (PURPLE, 2011).

Aim of the research

The aim of the research is to identify governance models and planning tools to foster collaborative planning of multifunctional land uses in peri-urban landscape.

The object of the research

Peri-urban landscape

• Parks and recreational areas
• Energy production fields (and distribution networks)
• Waste landfills (and collection, recycling processes)
• Water treatment facilities (collection and distribution)
• Food production (processing and distribution)

Governance

• Multi-level interplay among institutions at different level
• Cross-sectoral governance among institutions responsible for specific topics

The vision

An optimistic vision for the future of peri-urban landscape is that the various institutions and actors working at different levels and in different sectors, find a way to collaborate in order to develop integrated multi-functional uses on the open spaces.

As for metropolitan governance, this can either consist of one specific body responsible for the whole territory or in a collaboration amongst existing institutions. The latter option is preferred by the writer as it allows to constantly build new alliances and include more actors, offering the possibility to develop collaborative planning.

As for the landscape, the vision is use the landscape for more than just agriculture and building speculation, but by integrating resource management functions (such as water, waste, energy and food, both for production and treatment).