DENSIFICATION AND DE-SPRINKLING AS ALTERNATIVE TO THE URBAN DISPERSION

The work presented concerns a broad reflection on the possible recovery of the Italian urban dispersion, according with the discussed theme about “Urban density and sustainability” in the CeNSU International Annual Symposium. From a research developed in the Department of Civil, Construction-Architectural and Environmental Engineering, it turned out that the Italian territory has been characterized by a high urban conversion of soils which occurred mostly with dispersed and low density urban development. The phenomenon of urban dispersion is known as “urban sprawl” but in Italy it has different and peculiar characteristics, so different that they need to formulate an alternative model, called “sprinkling”. Specific aspects of this urban model are: the wide spatial dispersion of the built and ancillary parts on huge territorial districts, the weakness of urban design and the lack of public services. This has led the proposed study to reflections related to the analytical reorganization of national urban growth models and to the formulation of containment lines of the negative effects linked to the extreme urban spread that characterizes the Italian territory. Consequently, one of the main results obtained was the formalization of a possible recovery model called “desprinkling”. Indeed, the strategies to avoid more consumption of soil, which are realised by densification, are the focus of the current international discussion and this is attested by the production of a considerable bibliography. However, the solution of such problem is still a open and ongoing research topic because of its complexity, especially in Italy where there isn’t a national legislation on this important theme. Therefore, the densification should be studied and proposed in very assorted forms, depending on the typology and spatial organization of the interested areas.