Truth is, no one could have ever imagined living in such an unamenable historical moment. And yet, in this unprecedented historical moment, our crusade for normalcy must be akin to something outstanding. As the global pervasiveness of the Coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage economies across the world, one popular perception that has sustained is that the virus doesn’t discriminate. As rich and poor are equally vulnerable to this contagion, within urban landscapes core and periphery stand the equation as well. Hence, an egalitarian perspective would most probably denote it as a double-edged sword as well as a mixed blessing. In like manner, I admit having particularly noticed this oddness in my own city landscape, Rome.
A swift gaze at the current state of affairs helped me to formulate this research’s heuristics: we will try to infer whether there is a presumed homogeneity in destinies or otherwise a broadening gap between rich core neighborhoods and poorer and less-equipped peripheries in the city of Rome; data retrieval will be almost entirely satisfied by the national statistics released on a daily basis.
Source: The Economist
The idea of city space has become a quite redundant one throughout historical narratives. We are used to considering cities as ageless and primordial entities, antecedent to human beings. This statement is, obviously enough, false. “Before the city, there was a land” (Cronon,1991). Cities are not structures, cities are people, or better, they are the people who live them. This is why their destinies are so dissimilar one from the other. And yet, the current health crisis has radically altered the picture without discrimination. Normally chaotic and busy, with its roads characterized by the screeching rumble of cars, buses, or motorcycles, in the latest Spring also the city of Rome appeared suspended in a limbo between the Dark Ages and a sci-fi future. A disheartening scenario that is most likely repeating itself. Nonetheless, when we talk about destinies, the partitioning of goods and bads is ofttimes neither equal nor fair. The temporary curtailment of liberty and the impact of generalized lockdowns surely varies significantly across sectors, skills, and economic strata in an unequal world. Evidently, statistics do not constitute an index for human suffering, but still, they can give us instruments to enrich and refine our inferences. During last Spring, a densely populated city as Rome seemed surprisingly blessed from the massive and brutal spread of the virus; markedly, a more fortuitous destiny than the one reserved for cities of Northern Italy. However, such a narrative reflects how things can change quite rapidly too.
According to data updated to the 21st October, at the summit of the top five of the districts at risk of contagion within the Great Ring Road is Primavalle. Here, the number of positives reaches 253. They follow in order: Centocelle (249), Trieste (226), Torpignattara (220), Val Melaina (219). For Primavalle a significant increase with 62 cases more than last week. The increase in the other four zones, at the top of the negative classification of the virus spread, is definitely more contained: in Centocelle +38 positive cases; in Trieste +43; in Torpignattara +30; in Val Melaina +40. But it is just outside the Gra that there is a greater incidence with Torre Angela at the top of the ranking and conquers the black jersey at a galloping pace of 320 total cases, and an increase, compared to last week, of 54 positive cases. Hence, if we frequently tend to describe a quite heterogeneous and scattered trend among outlying areas and city center/rich areas, these cold figures seem to describe a virus running in the periphery and slowing down more in the center.
A glimpse of daily contagions by districts (table listed by neighborhoods, total inhabitants, total contagions, and contagion trends) source: La Repubblica
The virus has been de facto a great equalizer in its incipient semester and still is in terms of absolute risks of local community spread. Ergo, we need to question what is changing the ongoing trend.
A major factor of incidence is represented by the plight of public transports in Rome. Even in an ex-ante Covid-19 scenario, Rome’s public transportation system has always been deemed to be poorly organized and overtly under-equipped to sustain the phrenic rhythm of the city and its inhabitants. The scarcity of buses and personnel has unceasingly led to ramshackle overcrowding of passengers which obviously nullifies personal space and mutual distance. To couple with the aforesaid quandary, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Italian Government set a general rule for establishing a maximum accepted capacity of buses (80% of its full capacity, ndr), a rule which has nonetheless been almost entirely ignored.
Evident congestion in public transports in Rome, August 2020 source: Il Messaggero
The idea then is that peripheries are not only poorly connected but also its residents may find no other valuable alternatives to reach their workplaces. Hence, forced travel on public transport, the harshness of living and working conditions, the complexity of social relations, and the radical changes in lifestyles, all contribute to tip the balance in this regard. Even so, somehow, the virus increases inequalities. A fact that also springs to mind when looking at the incidence of contagion compared to the resident population. And with a trend that, broadly speaking, maintains the gap.
Paris 2020 municipal elections: caveats and challenges
for la Ville-lumière
After the transportation strikes that blocked the city for over a month in opposition to French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, the year 2020 seems to continue on the path of 2019, conveying radical changes and bouleversements for the French political universe.
Well before the deciding presidential elections which
will be held in 2022, the current year appears to be crucial for political
parties. In point of fact, in March 2020 the political scenario will be largely
dominated by the upcoming municipal elections; for the sake of this article,
our attention will vert solely on Paris.
As to avoid simplistic conclusions as well as spurious
and scattered information, first and foremost we will provide introductory
premises regarding the nature of the electoral system and the incumbent
administration.
French political tradition is consistently conjoined
with the Two-Round System, given that presidential, legislative, regional and
departmental elections all employ the system. The first round resembles the
typical First Past the Post (FPTP) system; if a candidate receives an absolute
majority of the vote, then it is elected outright with no need for a second
ballot. Otherwise, in case no candidate receives an absolute majority, then a second
voting round is conducted. The candidate who wins the most votes in the second
round will be then elected. For the French National Assembly, all candidates
winning more than 12.5% of the votes of registered voters, or the top two
candidates, go through the second ballot.
In the case of municipal elections, a Two-Round system
is exerted only for municipalities with more than one thousand residents. While
it is slightly more representative at the constituency level than the First
Past the Post (FPTP), it is deemed to be highly disproportional while
artificially boosting large parties.
“Before the
city, there was a land” (Cronon,1991).
In his book, William Cronon
recounts how Chicago was formed out of a city-less landscape, by people who migrated
there and crafted the urban scenery through cultural and economic exchanges.
Cities are not structures, cities are people, or better, they are the people
who live them. This is why their destinies are so dissimilar one from the
other. Assuming the equation city = people,
in a social Darwinistic perspective cities can be considered to be struggling
for survival too. Their success or their failure, their sterility or their
blossoming, is strictly dependent on the renewed impulses of its inhabitants. What
this brief and not exhaustive excursus wishes to highlight, is how significant
a mayor can be for an urban space.
Since 2014 elections, Paris has been administered by the socialist Anne
Hidalgo[1],
the first women to conquer the French capital and one of the most prominent
figures of the Socialist party on the national chessboard. Portrayed as strict
and inflexible, the Socialist mayor of Paris has stood and still stands as a
symbol of resistance to the ballot-box domination of 2017 which saw the macronian
party La République En Marche! (LREM)
winning 12 out of 18 National Assembly seats. In between acclaims and harsh
criticism, she has renewed her willingness to be elected and has launched her
campaign for 2020.
Anne Hidalgo, during a press conference in March 21, 2019. Source: France24
According to the French newspaper Le
Monde, around 60 percent from a sample of 2.942 electors, have expressed
their dissent towards a putative re-election of Hidalgo; despite this fact, the
polls still deem the incumbent mayor to be the favourite, just before Benjamin
Griveaux.
Her term has seen efforts to strive towards a “eco-friendlier” city,
including battles to thin out car traffic as well as an array of construction
projects throughout the city which have appraised a positive record on
environmental transition.
La République En
Marche (LREM) has
indeed been characterized by an odd schism within its proposed candidates. The
official name has been the one of Benjamin Griveaux[2],
who won the seat in the fifth constituency of Paris during the 2017 legislative
elections, with 56.27 percent of the vote. His campaign seems to be proactive
and verts around urban planning pillars, like the pretentious project of a
Parisian “Central Park”. Howbeit, during the summer another LREM affiliate
decided to take a stand in the mayor race. Cédric Villani[3],
French deputy and university professor but with an Italian heritage, is best
known for being a mathematician rather than a political leader, winning in 2010
the Fields prize for a pioneering empirical work.
Cédric Villani and Benjamin Griveaux; Source: Le Parisien
His growing consensus, despite Macron’s latent dissent, is probably due
to his willingness to have a direct contact with citizens; within his
proposals, the desire to create a parallel body to the parish council, composed
by citizens and experts in the socio-economic realm. His attempt represents a
forceful rupture and a quantum leap towards inclusiveness under the aegis of
horizontal subsidiarity. Quite hazardously, it may appear a sui generis tentative co-governance.
From the part of the Republicans, the presented candidate is Rachida
Dati[4];
her proposals will focus primarily on the well-known rightist triad of
security, health and family. At the moment, the polls attest her to be the
fourth most favoured candidate.
Rachida Dati. Source: www.lalibre.be
The Green Party’s nominee has been for David Belliard[5],
journalist and president of the group at the parish council. Given the fracture
from the macronian side, the ecologists will be increasingly relevant and
weighty during the campaign. Quite coherently with his party affiliation, the
proposed plan for Paris, is to commute it into a ville nature, so a “city of nature”, with particular attention on
climate change challenges, tourism and traffic spillovers (namely, limiting
emissions).
David Belliard. Source: GettyImages.it
The scenario seems to be quite scattered and fragmented in light of a large
supply side. The Socialist candidate Hidalgo leads the polls, followed by
Griveaux (LREM), Villani (Independent), Dati (LR) and Belliard (EELV), while
leaving a marginal and insignificant role to the candidates Rassemblement National and France Insoumise.
The graph shows the projected consensus of each candidate according to the polls. Source: Ifop, Ipsos
After our considerations and suppositions around Paris municipal
elections, candidates and their tailored programmes, we ought to ask whether
the upcoming mayor will be a blessing or a curse for a city facing growing
challenges in terms of security, migration, increasing costs and climate
issues. Each candidate’s programme pinpoints on issues such as urban planning,
measures for a “greener” Paris, more involvement form the part of the citizens
and security, although the latter seems quite marginal. Will their tentative
effort be enough or remain exclusively heuristic in value? Will he or she will
be capable to restore the grandeur of la
Ville-Lumière?
“Taken as a whole, the range of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time” –Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up jointly by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme to provide an authoritative international statement of scientific opinion on climate change, periodically assessing its causes, consequences and possible responses.
Climate change nowadays is an utmost emergency,
unleashing multifarious spin-offs with a worldwide impact. If years ago global
climate change still had latent effects, now they have become clearly
observable. Temperatures will continue to rise, frost-free seasons (and growing
seasons) will lengthen, precipitation patterns will change, the sea level will
rise 1-4 feet by 2100, droughts and heat waves are projected to become more and
more intense and cold waves less intense everywhere.
It seems evident that corrective measures by countries
are needed in order to stop or at least to decelerate the phenomenon: just to
mention one, the Paris climate conference (COP21) held in December 2015 was the
first-ever universal and legally binding global climate deal adopted by 195
countries in pursuance of the reduction of greenhouse emissions while limiting
global warming to 1.5°C.
Floods
There shall be no attempt in creating a hierarchy of
natural disasters, since each of them has severe impacts on the natural
environment and considerably threatens human lives.
Howbeit, there are some calamities which are
considered to be more harmful than others according to the scale of their
potential of havoc and disruption.
Pie Chart showing the economic damages (expressed in USD) of disasters by type and region (Source: UNISDR)
Floods, namely the abnormal accumulation of water over
normally dry land, are caused by the overflow of inland waters or tidal waters,
or by an unusual accumulation of water from sources such as heavy rains or dam
or levee breaches[1]. At the
moment, they are the most common (and among the most deadly) natural disasters
in the United States, with an incidence of 38% amounting to a total of $1,011 bn.
A latest study released this month, “ How Climate
Change Will Impact Major Cities Across the U.S”[2], charts
cities’ risk levels for incurring damage from climate change, such as floods
for instance; what surprisingly has been recounted by the study is that the
most vulnerable cities are also the least prepared.
The correlates of readiness and resilience are linked
to some factors worth mentioning: wealth, income, inequality, unemployment rates
and so on.
As a matter of fact, top 5 low-readiness/ high risk
have shown a considerably larger black and Latino population and higher poverty
rates, disclosing therefore a direct causality between poverty and
vulnerability to climate change.
Flooding Cities: some examples
Still and all, we shall cross the American frontier to
shed a light on some other interesting cases.
For the purpose, the Indonesian current situation case
seems to be worth of interest.
Since its capital Jakarta continues to sink in the
Java Sea, the government and its president Joko
“Jokowi” Widodo, recently announced their plan of dislocating the
capital to the verdant island of Borneo. The interesting thing to notice is how
natural disasters can revolutionize the urban planning of a city, or better, of
a whole country. In fact, Borneo promises a “greener” future for the country,
significantly reducing traffic congestion, overcrowding and air polluting
factors. The idea lies in the grand strategy and believed abstraction of making
Indonesia’s capital a “forest city”.
Another high risk zone are the Netherlands, whose
large parts are situated below the sea level. Climate change effects, namely
the aforementioned rising sea levels and heat waves, further exacerbate the
threat of flooding for the country.[3]
Since the last devastating flood of the North Sea in
1953 – which hit also England, Scotland and Germany – an elaborate system of
dams, sluice gates, storm surge barriers and other protective measures are in
place next to the dikes. These are framed within the Delta Program, whose aim
is to protect the country against the dreadful threat of floods.
Italy too has had a long history of disaster caused by
floods (Polesine in 1951, Florence in 1966, Genoa in 1970, Versilia in 1996,
Sarno in 1998, Piedmont both in 1994 and 2000, Friuli in 2003 and the most
recent in Apulia in 2005).
The safeguard protection concept has been implemented
by establishing the rules responding to the appropriate land management, while
identifying the river basin as the basic unit for developing a proper land
management plan.
The infographic provided below shows the areas at high
hydrogeological critical state per type of disaster (floods, landslides and
avalanches).
Source: “Flood Risk Management in Italy: tools for the hydrogeological land planning”[4]
Quite utopically, we could ask ourselves how a
flood-proof city would look like then.
An article from The Guardian underlines how
recent floods show that it is not just the unprecedented magnitude of storms
that can unleash a disaster, indeed massive urbanisation constitutes a
significant catalyst in this sense.
Tragic events such as the ones we have just mentioned,
shall therefore not only be seen in the light of fatalism, but rather as
artificial man-mad disasters.
For the sake of this, many architects and urbanists
are pushing creative initiatives for cities that treat stormwater as a
resource, rather than a hazard. Just to mention some, the permeable pavements
in Chicago or the construction of 16 “Sponge Cities” in China as a solution for
the freshwater scarcity and flooding suffered by many cities as a result of
urbanization.
To conclude, we have mentioned how natural disasters
can constitute a threat, endangering human lives and altering the urban
landscape. Will this detrimental ongoing process ever come to a halt? The key
then is to increase the readiness of cities to the phenomenon, as in an “urban-smart”
metamorphosis, while keeping an eye on preventive measure and impact
evaluation.
The Circular economy is an economic model which designs out waste and pollution, keeps materials in use and regenerates natural systems, envisioning every product as being created with the intent of extending its lifespan and adding value wherever possible through this process. Why such a model can constitute a “win-win opportunity”? According to EPA Director General Laura Burke “inefficient consumption and missed opportunities for reuse & recycling leads to more waste and higher greenhouse gas emissions” so a circular economy may constitute an innovative solution to disrupt traditional business models while creating new enterprise opportunities.
The Industrial Revolution laid the foundation for how the economy of today operates. Since 1684, after Thomas Savory’s steam engine discovery kick-started the industrial revolution, goods were mass produced, raw materials and energy were seemingly infinite and ever-available. Until the 17th and 18th centuries, growth was slow, constant and homogeneous both within and between countries, inasmuch as GDP per capita and population size which remained constant too. The first Industrial revolution broke this idyllic stable stationary state. We detect steady rise in GDP and the first diverging growth paths between countries, given by the increase of the stock of production factors. The consumeristic mantra has affected considerably the way we use resources: we take them from the ground to make products, we use them, and then we no longer want them, so we throw them away, underestimating their underutilized potential. This triadic sequence of “take-make-waste” is the blueprint of our spoiled linear economy; it is the direct product of erroneous short-term consumeristic attitudes. Howbeit, if we accept that the natural world’s cyclical model works, we can change our way of thinking and of using resources.
A future oriented mindset would rather try to answer different kinds of questions, which can consequently contribute to the redefinition and redesigning of products themselves. Likewise, what if the goods of today became the resources of tomorrow?
Instead of embedding and rooting in the immediate present the life span of a good or service, a circular economy approach can help us to rethink the operating system itself, to rethink a new concept of ownership, where goods are designed to be disassembled and reused. The Ellen Mc Arthur foundation – which since 2010 aims at accelerating the transition towards a circular economy – attempted to identify three main principles for the redefinition of a new system based on a cyclical (or circular) model. [1] First and foremost, to design out waste and pollution; the latter are de facto direct consequences of decisions made at the design stage, where around 80% of environmental impacts are determined. If we begin to consider waste as a design flaw which potentially harnesses new materials and technologies, we can ensure that waste and pollution are not created in the first place.
Secondly, to keep products and materials in use. Or better, to use things rather than using them up. As we previously mentioned, challenging the composition of goods a priori, by designing them for the sake of being reused, repaired and remanufactured, prevents harsher corrective measures a posteriori.
And finally, the idea of regenerating natural systems. We were underlining formerly how in nature nothing is waste; everything is cyclical and is food for something else. Moreover, this new approach counts conspicuous estimated benefits: around $700 millions per year of material cost-savings in the fast moving consumer goods industry; 48% reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030; $550 billion reduction in health care costs associated with the food sector; €3000 increase in disposable income per annum for EU households and many more spillover effects around the globe. Another backlash commenced by the Industrial Revolution was the internal migration wave, from the rural to the urban areas. Between 1900 and 2015, the urbanized population increased from 14% to 54% and is forecasted to rise to 66% by 2050; so three quarters of us will live in cities. As a natural consequence, urban centers are grappling with the effects of our current take-make-waste detrimental linear economy.
Having internalized this mode of action, cities consume over 75% of natural resources, produce over 50% of global waste and emit between 60-80% of greenhouse gases. A circular economy becomes a solution inasmuch as it provides a way to ensure a long-term growth and prosperity in the urban context. At the moment, we can count an increasing number of cities which are approaching the circular economy model. Glasgow for example, has instituted a circular economy investment fund; both Brussels, Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam and Paris are taking various initiatives, part of a larger frame which is the Circular Economy Action Plan and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation established in 2010.
Moving outside Europe, we count Bilbao’s action plan, India’s Strategy paper on Resource efficiency, China’s Circular Economy Promotion Law and five-year plans and other initiative taken together with Japan and South Korea. Keeping in mind what we formerly said, namely that the circular economy is able to create new enterprise and business opportunities, Circular Glasgow is a peculiar initiative of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and is delivered in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland. [2] The aim of this movement is to inspire businesses of all sizes to innovate and become future-proof by adopting circular strategies. Practical initiatives have been implemented in order to connect companies across cities, increase competitive advantages and realize financial savings (for instance the “bread to beer” initiative which can be considered archetypal in our case). On a regional scale, focus areas vary from city to city, but broadly align with Scotland’s Circular Economy Strategy 2016 ‘Making Things Last’ which highlights food and drink, bioeconomy, energy infrastructure, and manufacturing as initial centres of interest.
Poster of the Circular Glagow initiative
Cities need to engage in a systematic transition from the linear paradigm of production and consumption to a circular one. We have shown that innovations have already begun in some cities across the world, particularly in sectors like healthcare, waste management and energy. Obviously, this transition ought to be incentivized collectively, requiring collaborative efforts across the value chain, involving individuals, private sector, government and civil society actors. Quite hazardously, it seems as if the decision stage is stuck in a matrix, like in the case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Defecting or not defecting?
Like in a game theoretical framework, individual behaviors have repercussions both at the individual and at the collective level. The defective outcome of decision-making is attributable to asymmetry of information which constitute a pervasive hindrance in economic theory. An intuitive (and heuristic) argument is that we live in an economic environment characterized by imperfect altruism, which guides utility maximization problems more in general and particularly decisions taken at the household level.
A circular economy oughts to unleash a transition to a more relational stance and future oriented goals, ditching linearity with its rigorous and circumscribed starting and ending points, striving instead towards a more fluid and cyclical model, where end and start become relative nomenclatures, blending together and mystifying themselves.
Environmental issues are becoming more and more a key challenge for cities around the world. C40 shows that “70% of cities are already dealing with the effects of climate change”. Cities have played a significant role in accelerating risks because of the continuous and unlimited urban growth we have witnessed in the past years. They are becoming bigger and bigger, creating over 70% of global CO2 emissions, and consuming ⅔ of the world’s energy. A striking C40 data warns us of the catastrophic effects that climate change can have on urban societies in the future: “Over 90% of all urban areas are coastal, putting most cities on Earth at risk of flooding from rising sea levels and powerful storms”.
What are the consequences of these environmental risks for the future of our cities? How to manage it? What solutions can we find?
In order to avoid any simplistic explanation on a topic of such importance and complexity, we ought to make clarity on the real terms of the discussion. What is risk and how do we define it?
Ulrich Beck sees a different and more obscure dimension to development; a “risk society” based on an acute awareness of risks and loss of faith in progress.
Even more interesting, is how this reflexive modernity embodies the exegesis of the progressive disillusion with institutional and traditional politics. According to Beck this detachment from traditional rhetorics produces a “sub-politics”, concerned with issues such as consumption and lifestyle.
Following this post-modern flavor, Beck concentrated initially on environmental issues such as the problematization of energy. Unlike goods, these “bads” could not be subject to a politics of distribution. The smog produced by domestic coal-burning, affected everyone. Because of this “egalitarian” redistributive effect, environmental hazards constitute an undiscriminated threat for everyone.
Natural hazards and disaster produce increasing catastrophes in cities (just see what has blown up Italy in the last few days!). That does not mean that other kinds of hazards are incapable of producing urban catastrophes. The answer is that natural hazards are joint products of nature and society. Unlike the other threats just mentioned, they are only partly created by humans; thus their unpredictable nature contributes to an incremental and general insecurity.
Since the industrial revolution cities are risk-producers and risk-bearers, both victims and executioners. Economic activity, sprawl and proximity have caused cities to become less and less sustainable; in particular we can infer a negative correlation between economic productivity and sustainability. Take a city-state as Singapore for example; in 1965 it was a polluter’s paradise: mucky rivers, polluted canals and raw sewage running rampant. A modern “Coke Town”. Per contra, things are changing because of the efforts of enlightened personalities. The city’s pioneer generation understood that if you make a city “a nice place to live, then people will come and invest.” Lee Kuan Yew became often called ‘Chief Gardener’ for his belief in the power of plants and biodiversity to transform people’s overall mental well-being, as well as physical spaces. Huge plants crawling up skyscrapers, natural parks and water sanitation measures (just to clean-up Singapore’s river took around 10 years!) represent a significant step towards global future objectives.
The renowned 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development addresses global challenges such as poverty, inequality but also climate and environmental degradation Nevertheless, 12 years seem to be not enough to face multifarious issues. Concerns have been raised too by the ASviS (Alleanza Italiana per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile). In the recently issued report, the association expressed its concern with respect to the “too slow” progress towards the SDGs, both for Italy and the European Union, which should present a framework of policies by the end of the year.
The 7th Environment Action Program (EAP) constitutes for the moment, the legislative and guiding framework to work on, identifying key objectives such as the protection of natural capital; the transformation towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon economy; and to safeguard Union’s citizens fro environment-related pressures.
Therefore, we should prepare our institutions and environmental management strategies for the twenty-first century, especially in the mega-cities that will likely become the pivots of global society. Worth mentioning is what 100 Resilient Cities does and aims to; pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, their ultimate objective is to help cities to become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges – earthquakes, floods, sprawl, etc. – of the XXI century. Their philosophy is that, addressing both the shocks and the stresses, a city becomes more able to respond to adverse events, and is overall better able to deliver basic functions in both good times and bad, to all populations.
Thus, can we meet the basic needs—food, water, and energy—of a growing population and a growing economy and do better for biodiversity by 2030? If each country shows an increasing commitment towards environmental risk management, the answer will be probably an affirmative one. As James Mitchell has observed, failure to recognize natural hazards as a worsening urban problem suggests a myopic view of urban management and signals flaws in the conceptualization of sustainable development as a principle of urban management. It is to be hoped that efforts will be canalized into correcting the structural deficiencies peculiar of our risk society.
