Historic infrastructure and urban regeneration. Bottom-up approach for an identity-inclusive city

In Europe, and even more so in the Italian context, urban regeneration strategies are measured between protection of historical heritage and creation of new arrangements. A new concept of identity and social inclusion is proposed, starting from awareness of the deep link between quality of historic urban contexts and development opportunities. The research "Italy and China. Historic infrastructure and ecological networks for an integrated urban regeneration strategy', by the PDTA of Sapienza University of Rome, analysed the relevance of historical-environmental components as reference strategies to trigger urban regeneration interventions. The research defines the operational and theoretical-methodological references to be fielded in order to activate processes of urban regeneration of historical infrastructures that take on the "sign" of invariants, naturalistic, landscape, historical-documentary and identity permanences as a guarantee of sustainable urban development. Among the case studies analyzed is the project of the Park of the 16th-century Walls of Padua, carried out since 1986 by the Walls Committee through a project path shared with associations, with the IUAV and with the support of the Region, Province and Municipality. While the historic city has always been characterized by a unitary and unifying framework of places, functions and inhabitants , the contemporary city is instead a complex of articulated, discontinuous and specialized situations. Historic infrastructure can play the role of a hinge and integration between different urban parts, strengthening and rediscovering urban historical memory. Bottom-up regeneration processes define an approach based on permanence and transformability, according to needs and requirements of an area and the people living in it.