Author(s)

N. Marchettini, E. Tiezzi & R. Ridolfi

Abstract

Brownfields contribution in managing urban sprawling and soil consumption in Brescia N. Marchettini1, E. Tiezzi1 & R. Ridolfi1 1Dept. of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences, University of Siena, Via della Diana 2/A, 53100 SIENA, Italy. Abstract The industrial district of Brescia is one of the most active in northern Italy. The scheduled reconversion of a large industrial site with a very central position (the so-called \“Comparto Milano”) has given the opportunity, during the last year, to assess the general potential contribution of brownfields reuse in the urban dynamics management of the region. The results were very reassuring about the chosen direction of an intensive reuse of idled areas, but very alarming about enduring soil consumption and urban sprawling trends. In many areas landscape identities are irreversibly lost, and the forecast doesn’t suggest significant changes: such a scenario addresses the opportunity of considerate urban reuse as the main answer to still growing urban market demand. 1 Introduction With his 200 hectares of surface, the historical centre of Brescia is one of the largest in northern Italy. So large that, from the walls building at the end of the XI1 sec. until the end of the XIX, the city never spread out the ancient perimeter.’ Since the first years of the last century, however, the steel and pipe industry sited the largest plants just outside the ring of the demolished walls. In the south-west, nearby the way to Milan, rose the largest industrial quarter. The crisis of Italian steel and iron industry in the early eighties gave way to a general process of relinquishment of industrial sites, but for the city of Brescia the phenomenon was particularly dramatic since it involved the core business of its strong industrial district.

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