Agro-urban Public Space in the European Bioregional City: The Case of the Left Riverside Agricultural Park in Florence

Abstract

In the “urban bioregion”, intermediate territories get new identities through a physical and relational redesign of ecosystem services beginning with polyvalent ecological networks dealing with food and its short supply chains. Such networks may become the backbone of a “rural-urban public space” defined to flood risk prevention, soft mobility, protection and enhancement of historical buildings, proximity farming and agroforestry. Starting from a bioregional perspective, the paper reflects on the need to re-territorialise food systems and describes as case study an experience recently completed: the project for the Riverside agricultural park in the left side of Arno, involving three municipalities in the Florence plain through the support of Tuscany Region Government for the participatory processes, and aimed at laying the foundations for a “river contract” with the function of agricultural park which, in the foreseeable future, could be managed through a number of social contracts involving local communities.