Green infrastructures in the masterplan of Rome. Strategic components for an integrated urban strategy

As part of the research and experimentation activities by the Department of Planning, Design and Technology, Sapienza University of Rome, the contribution is set in the context of the Research project “Mediterranean Europe. Strategies of urban and metropolitan rebalancing”, taking as its central theme the essential role of green infrastructures (GI) within planning processes aimed at urban and metropolitan rebalancing, and the implementation of urban and territorial regeneration strategies. The Research, in the conviction that urban regeneration is not feasible, in Italy, without a reform of the national urban planning legislative framework, adopts the need to start a process to renew of urban planning instruments involving the entire planning system. For these purposes, and starting from the awareness that significant disciplinary paradigms are already present in the experimentation of the plans and projects, as well as in regional legislative experiences, that have changed the strategies and competences of the urban plan by developing an effective model of a sustainable local plan, Research has investigated, with reference to some Italian cities comparing with European cases, the GI’s potential to activate, as components of planning, ecological connection systems within large metropolitan areas. Among the cases investigated, the contribution focuses on the emblematic experience of the New Masterplan of the City of Rome (2008), and, in particular, on the decisive role played by the Environmental System and the Ecological Network for the purpose of implementation and managing the overall urban planning strategy of rebalancing and regeneration that inspired it.