Paba, Giancarlo; Perrone, Camilla; Lucchesi, Fabio; Zetti, Iacopo (2017). Territory Matters: A Regional Portrait of Florence and Tuscany. In: Alessandro Balducci, Valeria Fedeli, Francesco Curci. Post-Metropolitan Territories: Looking for A New Urbanity, pp. 95-116, NEW YORK: ROUTLEDGE.
The urban area of Florence does not end where its boulevards begin: today, we live in a post-metropolitan Tuscany. The essay ‘Territory Matters’ offers a new view of the region, in which the traditional idea of the city breaks down and becomes part of a large, interconnected urban area.
The analysis explains how urbanisation processes no longer adhere to administrative boundaries, and how the area stretching from Florence to Prato and Pistoia now functions as a single entity. This transformation poses significant challenges for urban planners: how can transportation, the environment and the economy be managed if planning tools are still tied to individual municipalities?
According to the authors, ‘the territory matters’ because it is the material foundation upon which these new relationships rest. The first step towards designing policies that truly improve quality of life is to move beyond the myth of the isolated city and embrace the reality of the city-region, integrating the efficiency of the metropolis with the value of the Tuscan landscape.