Difficult balances and impossible partners.

ABSTRACT
This article is about the processes involved in preparing the preliminary
draft of the implementation local plan (ILP) of the San Giovanni a
Teduccio district of Naples (2008). The plan, drawn up during the
activities of the Innovative programme in the urban field (PIAU)
financed by the Ministry of Infrastructure in 2004, aims to integrate a
series of initiatives, already in progress or planned in the district for the
designing of public space, by giving special attention to the
redevelopment of the waterfront and the strengthening of its
relationships with the city. In the given conditions, the solutions
proposed by the plan represent the most advanced point of balance
between different visions which general urban planning and subsequent
programme agreements can bring about. Finally, ILP’s work is
subjected to a persistent contradiction, a structural incompatibility
between the activities of the commercial port and the renovation of the
waterfront: port and city generate a dialectic which, at present, is not
conducive either to economic development based on the logistics or to
urban renovation. Why don’t we look for other options rather than this
unfruitful incompatibility?

IJPP ­ Italian Journal of Planning Practice 40Vol. II, issue 1 ­ 2012

Enrico Formato
Adjunct Professor
e.formato@unina.it
Facoltà di Architettura "Luigi Vanvitelli" ­ Seconda Università di Napoli

ISSN: 2239­267X

The implementation local plan for San Giovanni a Teduccio inNaples.



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INTRODUCTION
This article is about the preliminary draft of the implementation local plan
regarding a part of the Naples’ coastline that is centred on the San Giovanni
a Teduccio district. The preliminary draft of the plan, prepared by the Office
in charge organized by the City of Naples for the Innovative programme in
the urban field (PIAU), was approved by the City Council in 2008. Since
then, while the technical activities of the plan’s preparation are continuing,
initiatives have been going on regardless of the preliminary town planning
proposals, thus largely thwarting the difficult balance achieved in the
preliminary draft of the plan.
The Innovative programme, financed by the Ministry of the Infrastructures
in 2004, is part of a National research characterized by:

Planning of the City (its coordination, formerly managed by Roberto Gianni, is now
entrusted to Giovanni Dispoto).
I had been working in this office from December 2006 to August 2008, dealing in
particular with the urban design and the drafting of the preliminary plan of the
implementation development plan of the San Giovanni a Teduccio area.

The office in charge, managed by Enzo Mendicino, is resonsible to the Department of Urban1

Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

the integration between infrastructure planning, urban planning and
urban design (including public works design) for the improvement of
the relations between cities and infrastructures (in particular, ports
and stations);
the coordination of different public operators working in the same
territorial context, with the establishment of regional technical design
and roundtables (in this case the proactive partners of the programme
are: the City of Naples, the Italian railway network – RFI – and the
Port Authority of Naples);

1.

2.

the establishment of “innovative” public offices that can reform the
Italian bureaucratic system, which is traditionally organized into areas
of competence (town planning, public works, infrastructure, street
furniture, etc.), towards a more functional “vertical” model, organized
into projects. In Naples an Interdepartmental project unit has been
set up whose staff come from different City offices and is strictly
dedicated to the project activities under the programme1.

3.



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This "public design laboratory" has been located for several years in the
railway station of San Giovanni and has been attended by other public and
private institutions operating in the sector, such as citizens called from time
to time for the many participating planning activities organized by the
working group, engineers of the State Railways and the Port Authority.

Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

1. CONTEXTS
San Giovanni a Teduccio is a post­industrial district for which the General Town
Planning Scheme (GTPS) in force has set very ambitious reforming targets.
This district, located at the beginning of what was called the "Miglio d’Oro",
had been an independent farm until the beginning of the twentieth century. It
then became the heart of one of the first industrial districts of southern Italy,
but is now affected by phenomena of production disinvestment and working­
class population increase with rising crime levels.
Since the early nineteenth century San Giovanni has had several industries in
different fields such as food (e.g. Cirio), metal (e.g. Corradini), and "power"
(power stations and oil depots). These production facilities are contemporary
to the first Italian railroad, the Naples­Portici (opened in 1838), whose track,
still in operation, is a significant dividing line between the village and the sea.
Since the seventies, the working­class housing district suffered some
changes because many productive activities were abandoned and the related
areas remained unused. A large number of public residential areas were
included in the Special residential housing programme (PSER) launched by
the Town Administration after the earthquake in 1980. Also the Port
Authority is planning the expansion of the port areas as far as the Pietrarsa

Figure 1 – Public design laboratory at work (railway station of San Giovanni, 2006)



the protection of settlements and buildings, including the disused
industrial buildings, with a historical and environmental importance;

1.

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De Lucia left the Department of the City at the end of the first term of the
Bassolino’s administration (1997). There were then a series of Policy
agreements derogating the town planning instruments which undermined the
vision proposed by the General Town Planning Scheme (GTPS) concerning the
area of study:

Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

the negotiation with the Port Authority for the construction of a huge
container terminal, overwhelming the "Eastern Dock", which moves
the eastward enlargement towards the sea, contrary to the GTPS;

1.

withdrawal of the relocation of the power plant that, instead, is to be
modernized and put back in full production by converting it from coal
combustion gases, which, since it is less polluting, does not even
require a proper Environmental Impact Assessment;

2.

part of the Corradini’s site, granted to private developers for
building – through a project finance – of a marina that, due to its
size and morphology, jeopardizes the desired re­establishment of
public access to the shoreline.

3.

the conversion of abandoned factories to social and public uses;
the principle of a "vision" in which the district "re­conquers" its
coastline, in particular, by blocking the expansion of the port to the
east (as proposed by the Port Authority), by ordering the relocation of
the Vigliena power plant to the "city of youth", and by the
construction of a new university campus in the disused Corradini and
Cirio factories, which belong to the City.

2.
3.

The construction works of the university are having a difficult start, the
"campus" has been finally located on a site abandoned by Cirios which is
rather remote from the main context, along the Corso San Giovanni, which
is without any connection to the coastline.
Finally, there had been a series of private developments of a poor urban
quality both for their essential characteristics and for their lack of connection

train depot, including in its scope the entire coastline of San Giovanni.
The General Town Planning Scheme promoted by Vezio De Lucia, town
planning councillor from 1993 to 1997, and entirely adopted in 2001, sets
out important elements of reform for San Giovanni a Teduccio:



in the case of the port facilities and of the power plant, for reasons
related to their functions;

1.

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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

in the case of the marina, for the tendency of the promoters to design
an almost protected island which, rather than providing opportunities
to the surrounding neighbourhood, is likely to create just another gap,
even though the terms of the approval of the project were supposed to
avert these risks since the project finance has been approved with a
set of "requirements";
in the case of the new station and transport infrastructures, since the
preparation of the project solutions occurred regardless of the
renovation processes that were being developed for this area; this is
also a risk in the case of the new university campus, in the former
Cirio buildings, which tends to be weakly connected by the Corso
San Giovanni.

2.

3.

These interventions are typical of a situation in which the individual
operators, both public and private, act like pioneers in a territory that’s not
entirely friendly and for which they think they have to adopt adequate
protection strategies to achieve their own individual goals.
2. METHODOLOGY, TRAINING PROCEDURES AND TARGETS
This scenario includes the ministerial funding of the PIAU (Innovative
programme in the urban field) and the creation of the urban planning and
coordination public office. Obviously, this process begins when many
decisions have already been taken and may seem to be irreversible.
The efforts pursued in preparing the urban plan for this area, therefore
moves right into the interstices between these projects, trying to "soften" the
separatist logic of certain decisions, in particular regarding the container
terminals, the marine and the power plant. The objective of the urban plan is
to create a continuous network of public spaces by acting on the “soft” edges
of sites and projects, in a sort of re­composition of individual initiatives, in a
dialogue with operators who are little interested in the quality and the urban

between public spaces and new settlement morphologies.
The most important interventions tend to set up "introverted" settlements in
different ways:



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

dimension of their intentions.
There is also an attempt to identify where private initiatives the area, that were
allowed by the General Town Planning Scheme, but have not been subject to
thorough formal supervision and may conflict with the emerging plan.
A process of refinement has been undertaken, based not only on the dialogue
with the institutional partners of the Programme (the City, the Port Authority
and the Italian railway network) but also on a continuous exchange of
opinions with all the key parties currently operating in San Giovanni: the
“Porto Fiorito” company, the developers of the marina, the "Tirreno Power"
company that was making the conversion of the Vigliena power plant (now
operational), the University Federico II, which is building a new
headquarters in the abandoned buildings of the "Cirio" factory, and the many
private individuals whose development plans are under investigation or have
required building permits for individual structures (both planned actions in
the implementation of the GTPS).
The plan making is attempting a reassembling that, through a patient process
of redefinition, starting from the basic level of the distance between the
building items (already existing or planned) and based its findings on the
"floor plan" and the functional interrelationships of the various elements
existing in the area2.
The work is based on the relation between materials and actions that have
heterogeneous natures and origins: parts of a historic city, industrial
archaeology, small operating or decommissioned manufacturing plants, clusters
of post­seismic public buildings, important current or planned initiatives, which
are usually started and developed independently from each other.
Thus the physical and conceptual "distance" between all the parties becomes
very important: the gap, the imprecise margin, a weak programme: these are
“median spaces”, long neglected by the urban planning project, from which
the quest for new meanings must start3. So that the road, the square, the field

1989; “Un’urbanistica di spazi aperti”, in Casabella 597­598, 1993; “Progetto di suolo
2”, in Aymonino A., Mosco V.P., Spazi pubblici contemporanei. Architettura a volume
zero, ed. Skira, Milan, 2006.

On this subject see in particular: Secchi, B.:Un progetto per l’urbanistica, ed. Einaudi, Turin,2

spazio aperto”, in: Proceedings of the Public Space Biennial organized by the INU in
Rome, May 2011.

See Russo, M., Città mosaico, Clean, Naples, 2011; Russo, M, Formato, E., “Urbanistica dello3



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

and the hedge become the building stones of a town planning that returns to
consider the open spaces between things (fences, buildings) as spaces to
form a new urban condition.
The activities of town planning participation and consultation with local
communities, that have been carried on in this district since 20064, have
been fundamental to the definition of the project. These activities have been
successfully supported and have substantially contributed to deciding some
of the main "themes" of the town plan: the recovery of the relationship with
the sea, through a new network of coastal paths and the connection of the
district with the coast; consolidation of the existing or new public spaces and
facilities, the town planning reconfiguration of some nodal areas, particularly
the one affected by the interchange node of land­sea transport in the tramway
depot (ANM) and the purification plant that must be dismantled.

Francesco Ceci) with the collaboration of "Avventura urbana" and Gilda Berruti.
The urban planning participation was handled by the Department of the City (coordinated by4

Figure 2 – Planimetric and volumetric project

3. A DIFFICULT BALANCE. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRELIMINARY DRAFT PLAN
The planning project includes a comprehensive set of interventions to create
an uninterrupted system of areas, located along the coast and the railway
axis from Vigliena, where there is the historic blockhouse of the Neapolitan



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

Revolution in 1799, up to Pietrarsa, the eastern limit on the coast of the City of
Naples, where there are the nineteenth­century exhibits in the national
Railway Museum.
3.1. RE­ESTABLISHING ACCESS TO THE SEA
The research shows that access to the coast, especially through pedestrian
access paths, must be created through a variety of solutions and interventions
that could be even more effective than those suggested in the GTPS. In
particular, it shows that the idea of an uninterrupted walkway along the whole
coastline is possible, from Vigliena to Pietrarsa, which would connect new
routes to the segment already built by the Municipality nearby the railway
museum in Pietrarsa.
The overall image for these public pathways to the sea is to establish a "comb"
structure, in which the horizontal axis (the "handle") is made by the
promenade and the "teeth" are made by the paths which cross the rail barrier.
The comb structure is typical of the historic settlements, which are open to the
sea, such as the “Miglio d’Oro”, although this has been partly erased by
modern urbanization.
In the designed solution the “handle”, about 3 km long, is made up of public
pathways which are mostly cycle­pedestrian, partly on the coast itself and
partly halfway down to the coast.
The characteristics of the coastal paths are related to the uses of the sea and of
the facilities that face onto it: the marina "village", the public facilities to be
implemented in place of the purification plant that is being closed down, the
settlement of Pietrarsa that must be suitably open for public access and
enjoyment.
There are two suggested paths halfway down to the coast. The first is
between the customs wall that delimits the areas of the Port Authority and
some settlements, some of them already existing and others new. This is a
path with a strong urban character that integrates car access and pedestrian
routes, using large tree­lined sidewalks. Renovation works here are meant to
enhance the former Cirio monumental building, as a possible place of
business connected with the Teatro San Carlo, located within the port area
adjacent to the tree­lined avenue, by adopting appropriate solutions to ensure



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

a well­organized direct access to car and pedestrian circulation.
The second path halfway down to the coast is along the northern limit of the
railway, at an elevation that is about the actual height of the boundary wall of
the track, approximately 4 metre high. Its result is a panoramic promenade on
a sloped structure that recalls the image of the bastion, like in the fortified
walls of Lucca and Ferrara. The bastion, visible from Corso San Giovanni, is
the largest part of the renovation works of public spaces to the north of the
railway. It is an element of union, both mentally and functionally, between sea
and inland, as well as a connective axis of the new system of public spaces,
made up of squares on the main street and terraces down to the sea, on both
sides of the railway line. Public car parks are planned to be built within the
embankment which is meant to free the entire Corso San Giovanni and the
open spaces next to it from parked cars.
In the old railway station square, the bastion is the connecting element to the
sea: the building of the current station is intended to be replaced by a new
structure that will allow the bypassing of the railway and the pedestrian
connection with the belvedere­terrace included in the marina’s design.

Figure 3 – Public pedestrian ways: the “comb” structure



These works tend to gather the replacment buildings around the existing
historical fragments, in order to consolidate the old town fabric and, at the
same time, to strengthen the continuity between this fabric and the town
areas on the edge, locating the main open public spaces in a key position
between the ancient village and the modern city on the edge.
3.3. THE "CITY CENTRE"
The "City centre" is proposed to be built in the area including the former
Corradini site and the present tramway depot. It is intended to be a set of
integrated functions on the basis of a complex web of public spaces and
public use: it is the focus of the railway overpass and of the new access
paths to the sea from the Corso San Giovanni; it would be an inter­modal
transport node, a nodal area with the relevant urban and territorial functions
that will be able to make it a place of urban and metropolitan attraction and
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elimination of modern structures built around the historic blockhouse
on public land and the creation of an urban­archaeological park
which recreates the relationship between the historic structure and its
surroundings;
a town planning restructuring of the connecting link between the
historic buildings and the new access boulevard to the marina with a
complete reorganization of the public open space;

1.

2.

the building of a new driveway and pedestrian crossings of the
railway line, to replace the present level crossing.

3.

6.2. THE VILLAGE AND THE BLOCKHOUSE
Another important key point is the historic village of Vigliena. An historical
reconstruction – cartographic and iconographic – of the area of Vigliena
shows that this settlement had been, up to the development of the modern
neighbouring areas, a sort of village, close to the sea and isolated in coastal
vegetation, with the bulk of the fort standing out. The implementation plan
aims, given the favourable conditions of the present context, to suggest a
kind of territorial restoration of the area.
This operation can be carried out through the following actions:



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

exchanges. This project takes advantage of the planned conversion of the
tramway depot (owned by the Municipality) that is located on Corso San
Giovanni. It is possible to reconfigure the whole of this housing scheme, that
overlooks public spaces reconfigured as a square, with the size and character
similar to those of the historic squares of the "Miglio d’Oro". This scheme
gives the terraced buildings glimpses of landscape to the nearby sea from the
elevated promenade of the bastion, thus functionally reconnecting the
historic town with the bastion and with the sea through a bridge structure.
The large volume of the present depot, that is to be converted into new
buildings or to be obtained as a result of the renovation of the existing sheds,
would be reused for the construction of a facility with public or private areas
destined for a collective use (trade).
On the coastal slope, where a part of the former Corradini site is still
available to the City, the plan proposes the development of a settlement
characterized by very attractive metropolitan and national scale features. The
site is remarkable for the value of its historical industrial architecture and for
its sea exposure. The idea is to combine leisure and cultural production
activities, relying on an audience, both users and entrepreneurs of the
planned activities, for the most part young people, more willing to consider
a peripheral area for “downtown” uses. This proposal arose from the
consultations held in January 2006, in a workshop day that was open to all
the citizens of the district; the idea was discussed in subsequent meetings
with the representatives of voluntary organizations, business activities and
cultural associations, and, finally completed, in June 2008, in a workshop
attended by experts, from different disciplines, competent in the field of
culture organization and economics.



a pedestrian overpass connecting to the access to the marina;
a new, sloping square, passing under the railway behind the current
public library, would be the convenient access to the beach and to
the contiguous public facilities.

1.
2.

Figure 4 – The City centre

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3.4. THE BEACH
On the eastern side of the coastal area that includes the marina which is now
under construction, the beach and the reclamation of the San Giovanni’s
purification plant, the plan proposes a more direct public use of the
shoreline, with beach works up to Pietrarsa and creating additional railway
line crossings:

Also the planned closing down of the purification plant gives the possibility
to clear a large area where community facilities ­ preferably related to the
playground­sea area, the "water park", could be located. It would be nice
that the citizens of San Giovanni, who crowd the beach during the summer
months, could have a large pool of sea water to bathe in while waiting for



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

the sea to come in.
The scheme is completed to the east with the museum and educational
concentration planned in the former warehouses of Pietrarsa, which is now
the National Railway Museum: the continuation of the promenade on a
portion of the public areas owned by the railways (as provided by the GTPS)
will connect the Neapolitan promenade with the nearby Portici. This is a
proposal which links from a district scale and extends to the entire
geographical area of the Vesuvius coast.
4. IMPOSSIBLE PARTNERS. THE REASON WHY THE PIAU DOES NOT ALTER
THE STATE OF THE SITES

The town planning innovative programme for San Giovanni with its
preliminary draft Local plan, which is still the programme’s most concrete
outcome, adopts some political choices, that were considered to be non­
negotiable, and on­going interventions: it pursues a difficult balance
between the urban and public­recreational objective, outlined by General
Town Planning Scheme, and the energy­productive initiatives determined by
the policy agreement signed by the municipal administration in the early
twenty­first century. The resulting urban design is probably the furthest
point achieved in the pursuit of balance, which is benefited from the fact that
the preliminary draft of the plan acknowledges a large number of
"adjustments" – agreed with the other public and private parties – in the
various on­going or planned projects in San Giovanni.
In short, the project pursues the following improvements: an increased access
by the public to the marine areas, the relocation of the multilevel parking that
will service the marina, thus restoring an ancient and attractive direct
connection between the areas of the Troisi Park, Corso San Giovanni and the
promenade on the new pier; the change of the morphology and for some areas
to be included in several Local development plans, presented by private
individuals; the "negotiation" with the Terna power company ­ culminating in
a very modest setback of the fence of the plant which is to be converted to a
gas plant – to include the new power plant in the local context.
According to the results of the PIAU and its local plan the railway areas to
be divested should be sold to the municipality for the creation of the



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

"bastion" area, with public promenade and car parks, in exchange for the
opportunity to build commercial areas and office buildings, complementing
the railway station of the "City centre" planned in municipal areas in the
place of the tram depot in the Corso San Giovanni.
Even in light of the delay with which the preliminary draft of the plan is
turning into a working implementation plan, we cannot underestimate the
opportunity to recognize the possible radical changes in the structure, before
political decisions can become long term irreversible physical actions only.
This is what happened for the renewal of the Vigliena power plant, whose
cycle of depreciation postpones any second thoughts for at least several
decades.
The point at issue ­ which really transcends the size of the district and involves
the entire city and metropolitan area ­ is the following: is it really possible to
imagine the coexistence between one of the most active commercial ports of
Europe and such a dense and congested town as Naples?
Taking into consideration the scale of the San Giovanni district, the town
planning work of the Innovative programme seems to demonstrate just this
structural incompatibility: it is not possible to relate "hard" port activities
involving freight, and for the most part containers, with urban renovation.
Any action in favour of one party adversely affects the differing outcome of
the other, even only for the dispute over the large areas required to deposit
and stock the containers: it is not by accident that today many of the Naples’
eastern areas, even those outside the port’s perimeter, are used to deposit and
store goods in transit through the seaport; nor is it by accident that any
attempt made at the PIAU table to change the port expansion project has
eventually been irrelevant; probably it was not "ill will" but an objective
impossibility. The interests of the competitors were too far apart, with no
margin for mediation as the Port of Naples involves a good deal of the air
pollution detected in town5.

Research), on "Smog and urban environment quality" Naples is the Italian city with the
highest impact of port activities on air quality. Its impact ranges from 25 to 40 percent of
the total emissions.

According to the latest report of the ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and5



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

International experiences, from Baltimore to Barcelona (Jauhiainen, 1995)
show that urban renovation, with the recovery of the waterfront for public
use and development of the port’s commercial activities can be put into
synergy only if the port activities are relocated to more suitable and less
congested areas. This opportunity should be at the centre of the political and
urban debate in Naples.
How was it that no one felt it necessary to analyse thoroughly these
possibilities before working on the port development project? The
enlargement of the Eastern Dock, besides being extremely damaging to the
desired renovation of the historic city and to the targets of the General Town
Planning Scheme, could become inadequate in just a few years because of
the expected increase of the maritime freight.
Imagine instead all the options, in terms of quality of life and functional
decongestion of traffic, that the recovery of the entire waterfront of Naples
could bring about ­ to be allocated primarily to social and educational­
recreational functions ­ maintaining and enhancing the passenger maritime
terminals, both the local ones (“Metro of the sea”) and those related to the

Figure 5 – Scheme of the commercial port



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners

cruise circuit. The commercial port, instead of investing in costly expansions
to the sea, could gradually move into already environmentally compromised
areas, on the Domitian coast (near Castel Volturno), that are already well
connected to the Nola Commercial Facility (CIS) and to the logistics
infrastructure of Naples’ metropolitan area. Even Luigi Cosenza’s suggestion,
that utilizes the Regi Lagni as a navigable canal to be used as an eco­friendly
distribution channel, could be topical again6. But this is at another level of the
matter. At a more detailed level, it would be good if at least the Port
Authority is prevented from locating the railroad, that is to serve the new
container terminal, only a few tens of centimetres from the neo­Gothic
building of the Cirio’s at Vigliena.
5. CONCLUSIONS. MORE PLANNING, LESS IDEOLOGY
In conclusion we can say that in the debate between urban renovation and the
expansion of the commercial port there are not, and there will not be, winners
in Naples; at least not in the sphere of interest of the public operators.
In the first instance, this is because none of the dispute’s contestants nor any
informed observers even think that the city's relationship with the port is a
problem: there is neither a debate on this subject nor a public opinion. For one
thing, the City of Naples simply continues to deal with the emergency deriving
from fine particles pollution by adopting unlikely and generalized measures to
reduce car traffic. The influence of the port activities on the city environment
has been referred to: it is clear that the current municipal policies should not
be marginal and ineffective. This is the most instructive example of how their
vision is completely out of focus, and a dramatic cultural lag has turned into
an ineffective and unrealistic administrative intervention.
The fact that the contestants do not even know that they are at war produces
also a remarkable series of collateral damage:

the port’s development activities are slowed down by the "stickiness"
of the fabric of the city, by the circumstances and by the

1.

Neapolitan federation of the Communist Party in 1966. See Moccia, F.D., Luigi
Cosenza. Luigi Cosenza. Scritti e progetti di architettura, Clean, Naples, 1994.

The project was presented by Luigi Cosenza in a report for the Study Commission by the6



the GTPS implementation plans, that have been being prepared for
years (the San Giovanni PIAU, the Mergellina PIAU, the Coastline
Executive Plan), inexorably slow down their own administrative
progress in a multitude of secondary issues: the Policy agreement
and the public works, that are episodic but immediate, seem to be
again the only solution to specific problems. The plan for the re­
conquest of access to the sea presented by the General Town
Planning Scheme now in force proves to be purely ideological, as it
impacts with sectional priorities that should be resolved at a higher
scale, in the consideration of an overall reorganization of the
metropolitan area.

2.

"bureaucracy" of the Municipality and of the Environmental Assets
Superintendent that is always extremely reluctant to deal with some
specific issues, without even having the chance to affect the
overview of the coastline plan;

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Therefore, the issue must be reversed, with not "less" but "more” planning,
beyond any possible slogans, which means undertaking a conceptual
processing that should be able to get rid of the many strong stereotypes: first
of all the belief that Naples is the centre of the Neapolitan metropolitan area
and that its boundaries, as in its enlightened master plan, are untouchable.
This is a necessary but not sufficient start: only by integrating a renewed
large­scale vision with the patient refinement of public participation and
design work at the urban scale and with new integrations of diverse kinds of
knowledge, will it be possible in Naples, and in many other Italian cities, to
recover from the delay and backwardness that have made town planning
practice so marginal with regard to the domain of action and ideology.



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners



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Formato ­ Difficult balances and impossible partners