Keywords

1 Introduction

The ways of anthropization undergirding the First Industrial Revolution are showing all their limits, and the publication of the The Limits to GrowthFootnote 1 was an emblematic moment highlighting that fact. The scaled economy becomes the basic criteria in building the industrial city, alongside those that have always been among the formative elements of each associated settlement, i.e., agglomeration economies. The elements, however, are also of a broader and different nature, as Appold and Kasarda (1990) pointed out regarding human ecology.Footnote 2 In Italy, beginning with its unification, building has been one of the main economic engines, and it has become even more powerful since its industrialization. After the World War II, cities have continued to expand, whether legally or illegally. But the destruction of territorial structures accelerated in the mid-1970s, as the distinctive landscapes characterizing the “Land of 100 Campaniles” were lost in un undifferentiated sea of construction. In the South of Italy, this is all the more significant because of the lack of other economic activities. Industrialization of those areas, thanks to Casmez (National Agency to support industrial development of less developed areas), started but then stoppedFootnote 3 for exogenous and endogenous reasons. Destruction of landscape must be stopped, and other development paths, compatible with an environmentally sustainable context and social equality, must be sought.Footnote 4 Reggio Calabria, one of newly institutionalized metropolitan areas, is an emblematic case illustrating this challenge (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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(Source S. Aragona)

Devastated landscapes in the Metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria

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Phenomenological thinking guides the study—considering local, natural, historical, and landscape resources—and suggests a possible, diverse, and very original ecological scenario. That scenario must be based on the idea of territory, city, and landscape, that contains the local social context (Barca 2010). This implies the importance given to environmental sustainability by the population: knowledge and awareness of the possibility/need for a different development path from that there pursued over the recent 40 years (Scheme 1).

Scheme 1
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(Source Aragona 2015a)

The overall ecological scheme

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2 I Have a Town Planning Dream…, A Story to Be Resumed

Between beginning of the 18th century and 1861, the Bourbon Kings in Mongiana and Ferdinandea created industrial settlementsFootnote 5 in which the iron extracted from the area of the Serre (VV) was utilized. The same iron was used to forge coins at Kroton, Κρότων, which had been founded by Achaean settlers in the second half of the 7th century BC. The Borbonia issued laws to protect local forests because wood was indispensable for the production ovens. An industrial port in Pizzo (VV), and an “ad hoc” road to reach more market areas and lower transport prices were built. All this, in today’s language, means creating local multipliers, synergies, based on use of local resources—iron and timber—safeguarding, with planning and management, a renewable resource, i.e., the trees. Moreover, the trees with tall trunks and with deep roots, served to diminish hydro-geological risk, in accord with the criterion of naturalistic engineering (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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(Source Bivongi e Dintorni)

The industrial plants in Mongiana (VV): the current state (left); the original (center); the geographical location (right)

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After 1861, the two new ovens were never inaugurated and, a few years later, the production infrastructures were decommissioned, while others sprouted in North Italy: it was the era of the great growth of UK industry that became major industrial competitor of the Bourbon State.Footnote 6 In this industrial area, there had been about 4000 employees, much more than the total of entire Sabaudo Kingdom at that time.

History contains yet another fascinating fact: modern ecological thinking originated in Calabria, between Cosenza, city of Bernardino Telesio, and Stilo (RC) from which his disciple Tommaso Campanella comes. The former wrote, from the mid 16th century—in more times—De rerum natura juxta propria principia (The nature of things according to their own principles). The latter wrote in 1602 La città del sole (The city of the sun): he went back to Platone (V century AC) and was strongly influenced by thinkers such as Thomas More with his Utopia of 1517, while the II edition (1623) Civitas Solis idea republicae philosophica, written in vulgar Florentine, edited in Freiburg, was coeval of New Atlantis written in 1624 and published in 1627 by F. Bacon. While Saint Francis of Paola created a monastic order, practically vegetarian, and the Certosa of Serra of Saints Stefano and Bruno in the Calabria Ulteriore—at the present the central-south part of Region (VV)—despite many destructive events, becomes well known in EuropeFootnote 7 (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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(Source 3bmeteo.com)

Certosa of Serra Saints Stefano e Bruno

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With the beginning of the travels of education/exploration of the Grand Tour, in the 18th century, foreigners discovered wonderful landscapes,Footnote 8 to use that romantic term. The Flemish painter Escher, during his trip to the South in 1931, saw and drew many of themFootnote 9: The fascination was so strong that he preferred Southern architecture, so rich with Arabian influences, in confront with the Renaissance or Baroque style that he also knew very well after the many visits to Italy. Footnote 10

These historical/cultural riches are spread over a sparsely populated territory. Reggio Calabria, the most important town, has only about 185,000 inhabitants. So it is medium/small town on the Italian scale, even more so at the European level. Catanzaro, a region capital, does not have even 100,000 citizens, among the other provincial capital towns, Cosenza has about 70,000 residents and with nearby Rende only 104,000 inhabitants, Crotone 61,000 and Vibo Valentia 34,000. Lametia Terme is the other unique center which reaches 70,000 residents. There are just six centers between 35,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, seven between 18,000 and 15,000. All the remaining urban centres—i.e., just a little less 400 of the 409 total—have population below that figure, often amounting to only a few hundred residents. Such a territorial context would suggest the proposition of a landscape characterized by a strong historical-naturalistic value, based on protection and enhancement of local resources.

Reggio Calabria’s metropolitan area, i.e., the 97 Municipalities of its Province, in this respect is a great opportunity to propose an “original” metropolitan city whose originality is based on cultural heritage, deriving from the ancient history of its territorial anthropization. And, thanks to the magnificent naturalistic resources, though strongly compromised, there are other important potentialities for building the above said characterization. In the meravilious Natural Park of the Aspromonte, the mountains are so high that it is possible to ski in places such as the Gambarie ski resort (1350 m. ASL), only 35 km away from Reggio Calabria and the sea (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
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(Source S. Tocco)

Gambarie (RC), skiing watching the sea

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Considering all this, regional planning requires the ecological approach as a basic philosophy: that is, having local conditions as “design suggestions” and avoiding choices that may be useful in the short period but not valid in the medium or long term. This metropolis must be a “network of innovation, history and territories” (Fig. 5). It must be able to be built as a regional-scale network. Thus, with Messina, it must become a reference for the entire Mediterranean area (Aragona et al. 2014).

Fig. 5
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(Aragona 2015b)

Reggio Calabria, network of innovation, history and territories

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It must contain the Gioia Tauro Harbour, until a few years ago the main HUB for Mediterranean container ships, as essential infrastructure for the regional and national economy. The network of the three universities present in the region, i.e., in Reggio Calabria itself, in Cosenza and in Catanzaro, must become more effective as they are among the main resources of the territory. Thanks to the limited size, the mentioned cities could characterize themselves as university towns similar to those in other parts of the world. Tourism must become a driving force for enhancing and protecting these territorial resources.

3 The Great Difficulties

But all the previously mentioned centers do not possess other urban realities similar to those of other Italian regions, e.g., Marche or Toscana. Reggio Calabria has only Messina as a neighbouring town, 3 km distant across the Strait.

There are not, in many cases, some of the conditions that Dematteis (1990) identifies to form territorial reticles and thus specializations: the presence of primary urbanization is not always guaranteed (Fig. 6); the financial system is not adequate; the administrative/policy level is often low; local knowledge is being lost itself; the absence of organized crime. On the regional scale, 1999 POR (Operative Regional Plans), with Small Municipalities Network Action has already tried to trigger virtuous processes of collaboration/competition between the small cities, i.e., the majority of its cities.

Fig. 6
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(Source S. Aragona)

Collection of rain water in Reggio Calabria

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But the outcome has been not satisfactory, as well as other instruments, e.g., the Territorial Integrated Projects, did not achieve significant results in terms of synergic strengthening between the centers. In addition, southern cities sit among the lowest rankings for Tolerance, one of the three elements—together with Talent and Technology—the bases of creativity and therefore of competitiveness.Footnote 11 Instead, according to the canonical geographic indicators, they should have higher rankings. The closure of territorial systems is among the various elements that determine this poor result: the more a territory is inaccessible to cultural exchange, the less it is open to novelty and change.Footnote 12 This social closure is associated with the problem of individualism, that, according to some (Cananzi 2016), in Reggio Calabria is “anthropological”, although it would be interesting to learn how it was before the unification of Italy.

Reggio Calabria, even if institutionally considered a metropolitan city, has not one characteristic of a city with this status: neither the populationFootnote 13 nor the relevant economic activities.Footnote 14 It has also a geographical isolation, its remoteness from other important centres: a fact that does not characterize the other metropolitan areas. The only two promising realities are, as mentioned before, MessinaFootnote 15 beyond the homonymous Strait and Gioa Tauro with its port. The port is currently (mid 2017) in a crisis—of the total 1000 workers, 400 have been laid off—although its potential is great, as evidenced by the primacy it had until recently with container-ship traffic as already mentioned. But there are no effective links with the territory, and no horizontal multipliers, or intermodal exchange nodes have been realized.

The morphology of the territory and infrastructure shortage, associated with the lack of services,Footnote 16 cause the limited accessibility. The Regional Transport Plan 2016, almost 20 years after the previous one, offers hope for improvement, also because a third of its recommendations are part of the National-level Strategies of 2015 (Malara 2016). The high-speed line should have a substantial upgrade; an intermodal HUB for railway is planned in Gioia Tauro Harbour; and a connection axis with Bologna is proposed through the Adriatic line. If Reggio Calabria wants to become a metropolitan area, it must have the Port of Gioia Tauro as one of its internal reference poles and create fast connections with it. This is also the thought of the Assessor to the System of Logistics, Regional Ports System and Gioia Tauro System of Calabria Region F. Russo, professor of Transport of the University of Reggio Calabria.

Since seismic and hydro-geological risks are strongly present throughout Calabria, studying and experimenting with solutions to deal with these risks would be an opportunity to create poles of excellence related to local universities.Footnote 17 A strategy of information/education for inhabitants, technicians, and politicians needs to explain the effects between localizations and risks in the short, medium, and long-term period (Fig. 7). Moreover, rethink territory and cities using indicators as the ones of the “Environmental Energy Certification, Towards a Concordat Code for Sustainable Development” (Certificazione Energetico Ambientale, Verso un Codice Concordato per lo sviluppo sostenibile, ANCAb—Legacoop 2008a). It was used, e.g., in abitaECOstruire Contest of ideas (ANCAb—Legacoop 2008b) and it was 2008!. All this, in a wider scenario of integrated ecological town planning, as in Faenza with its strategy of urban sustainable regeneration as illustrated by E. Nanni, head of Town Planning Dep. of the city, at the Congress of Italian Society of Town Planners (SIU) in 2016. Considering that questions are related at quantity but, with growing importance, involve the quality of life: for that ISTAT and CNEL since 2013 elaborated the 134 indicators of the Fair and Equitable Wellbeing and (BES) going beyond per capita income and GDP.

Fig. 7
figure 7

(Source S. Aragona)

Along the river, next to the Eurac (left) in Bolzano and below the faculties of Reggio Calabria with the ruin of the student’s house

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But in Italy, especially in the south, there is a big problem: the failure to consider territory and town as a public goods. One of our first missions as town planners and teachers of urbanistic studies consists of making information and education about all this and in supporting the civic sense of the cum-cives, i.e., of citizens that share a common idea of civitas (Cacciari 1991). We have to build up smart and sustainable territories and towns using political strategies remembering that the word politics comes from polis, i.e., the art of managing the city: the first smartness is to help citizens to become “ecologicus” people. At the Faculty of Architecture of Reggio Calabria some time ago there has been a three-year initiative, called Archisostenibile (Sustainable architecture), to in/form awareness about these issues (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
figure 8

(Source S. Aragona)

Archisostenibile

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These are topics on which the University of Reggio Calabria is at the forefront and participates in the European Universities Network for Energy.Footnote 18 Equally innovative is NOW’s REWECH experimental project, Laboratory for Electric Power Conversion of the sea waves,Footnote 19 one of the priorities in EU energy policy.

4 Political Choices Change the Territories: This Is the Final Note

It is then evident that the national and of wide area—such as the Region and/or the Province—policy strategies and those of the municipal level and, in the future, the metropolitan, guide the territorial transformation trajectories. This means that the vocation of a territory is also the consequence—but in a very relevant dimension—of man’s action.Footnote 20 Beware, however, because that may be unsustainable or became unsustainable, since sustainability must always be considered with respect to the specific context and the degree of scientific knowledge and technological level. The case of marble quarries is one of the most obvious examples of how, over the millennia, the landscape can be transformed, and more and more, quickly surrendered the advancement of extractive capabilities. And how all this creates many—increasing well known—risks for the health of both workers and residents of these extraction territories.Footnote 21

But the cultural component is essential. In the case of the metropolitan area of Reggio Calabria, next to the necessary infrastructure for making and building networks, inhabitants, local and regional authorities must be convinced of the unsustainability of continuing to cement over the territory. This not only to avoid the disappearance of the opportunities offered by the magnificent panoramas, but also for reasons related to seismic and geomorphologic risk. Starting from these elements, many of the cities must be rethought and mobility must become sustainable, while now it is based on the use of the private car. As previously stated, the main task for us as town planners and urbanists is to better explain why the “ecological approach” is needed for a smart and sustainable city: relying on implementation of the many proposals and education of the local urban inhabitants. So, this means following the lesson of Gennari (1995) when he talks about “city pedagogy”.

One last consideration is about metropolitan areas in general. They have large peripheral areas, mostly lacking in urban quality. The main motivation for their creation is the hypothesis that this enlargement increases competitiveness. But this is for whose benefit? Is it really convenient for citizens to be part of a vast and barely liveable territory? It is time to ask whether the evolution of the modern city, with its focus on large urban areas, metropolitan areas, is effective: whether the well-being of local residents and communities is growing or not. A “sui generis” metropolitan area such as Reggio Calabria could be an example of a “different” response that is really useful to citizens rather than the globalized economy without control, so it could be an example of the “smart globalization” required by Rodrik in 2011.

… and when it is raining this can been thought of as good weather: this is a basic change of perspective for progressing towards an ecological vision of territorial and town planning.