Da “luoghi” di scarto a “spazi” di innovazione. Piani e politiche per i territori agricoli periurbani

Concerning the new post-metropolitan area, the peri-urban territories, also due to the vagueness of their structural components, have become po-lisemical and plural places. From border areas between urban and rural functions, they have turned into integration places dealing with those two functions, getting out indeed their own plural identities. They are unsteady places, not even urban and no longer rural; border areas not only in spatial and administrative terms but also as regard a conceptual profile, which – such as a mosaic where settlement, agricultural and environmental systems interact and coexist- ask for clarification and mutuality reformulation between populated areas environment and open territory. The progressive intensification of populated areas in peri-urban context has generated on the one hand heterogeneous forms of settlement characte-rized by a quite clear low density and spatial fragmentation; on the other hand, in the setting up interstices we are able to find such a resisting areas that have been built by portions of territories characterized by the presence of natural emergencies, wide free areas and agricultural soil traditionally worth in terms of production, social and not least ecological-environmental value. It is from these resisting areas where to start running again in order to set up a brand new project for the peri-urban territories as to overcome the traditional carelessness on open territories planning. The future of post-metropolitan territories will be a great challenge both for planning and for the protection of peri-urban environmental and landscaspe values, particularly on those marginal and intersticial agricultu-ral areas that represent a very large share of territory. This paper aims to suggest a general remark on some key issues that urban planning will be facing up to renew its own tools and paradigm of action so as to recognize the common but sometimes latent values of peri-urban agricultural areas able to get back the alliance between agriculture and city over the new postmetropolitan context.