La sostenibilità della densificazione urbana: una proposta di metodo

The increasing attention to reducing land take set at European level and taken up by many regional contexts tends to promote urban densification. However, these choices can collide with the need to preserve urban ecosystems and mitigate the effects of climate change through natural spaces. Hence, assessing methods that can orient urban planning towards right, sustainable and reasoned densification choices is needed. With this aim, we developed a method to support the decision-making process by identifying priority areas for densification or desealing by using parameters and indicators which are easily available; the assessment has been structured on three different levels: from the urban scale to the neighborhood and to the blocks. The method was tested in the urban area of Ravenna, where the municipality is drafting the new “general urban plan” implementing the Regional Law 24/2017. The proposed methodology has proved to be an easy to apply and effective tool for structuring a system capable of assigning priority to densification / desealing actions based on the environmental and urban characteristics of the various urban areas, thus offering a simple tool to local administration for supporting informed urban policies.