The road towards sustainability: projects of renewal enhancement of green areas in the city: the Senigallia case study.

In 2010 the municipality of Senigallia, located in Marche region (Italy),requested to thethe Department of Agricultural Sciences together with the Department of TerritorialPlanning of the Alma Mater Studiorum of Bologna and in collaboration with four architects, two agronomists and communaltechnicians to draft the Green Masterplan (GM) of the city. Aim of the request was to promote a neat, homogeneous and sustainable development of the territory and improve the quality of life and the wellness of its inhabitants. It also targeted the reduction of the CO2, produced by the extension of the highway, that divided urban and rural landscape. In order to attain these objectives, the working group proposes to increase both the amount and the value of the green areas, and alsotheir level of interconnection.Specific guidelines for future planning and projects are proposed. The GM was approved and, since 2010, many projects have been proposed and realized during last years. The projects proposed and the ones that has been realized tried to create a big greenway, able to connect the northern zone of the town to the southern zone of the town, by the creation of new green areas, urban forests, tree-lines boulevards and green roundabouts. The article aim at describing these projects, which tried to enhance and protect the green areas of the city as a system. The approach that conceives green areas as residual elements, essentially serving as a décor, is surmountedby bringing back their leading role that inhabitants, ecological balance, and sustainability of our living models attach to it. The green presence is here considered as a new infrastructure which needs to be carefully planned, subjected to regulations and efficiently managed, used as a regulatory instrument for the territory, preserved and constantly maintained in good condition