The impact of the recent crisis has inducted many experts to revising the vision of cities seen like ‘engines of growth and jobs’ and to easily join the disbelieving attitude of so many citizens, by exploring and evolving towards more fundamental shifts in production and consumption that make cities more like “gardens”. The ‘Urban NOSE’ thematic network is largely showing that “truth lies in the middle”: in fact, a really great effort has still to be made at all levels, but starting from our neighbourhoods, in order to assure the right balance among the social, economic, environmental, cultural identity and ethical governance dimensions of sustainability, guaranteeing our cities to better play their role of ‘engines’ of smart growth and jobs, while advancing in the direction of growingly sustainable change in order to transform them into real ‘gardens’ where people and their ‘ecosystem economies’ can durably cohabit in a high quality relationship. Urban NOSE, indeed, is simply trying harder to promoting possible scenarios where cities are conceived as successful “garden engines”, locally feeding smart growth with more sustainable and aware strategic planning coming out from a permanent, multilevel assessment of all the local governance actors.
Sergio Campanella
