City-Effect: New Centralities in Post-pandemic Regional Metropolis Pescara-Chieti

Abstract

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the functioning of cities has been challenged, both spatially and a-spatially. This has therefore, exposed parts of urban areas to obvious disruption. Cities have expressed an evident spatial centralisation in places with high identity values and specific functions. The frequent disruptions from health limitations have underlined the important relationship between compact cities and conterminous fragments, thus, starting a process of a sustainable rebalancing of the urban system. The purpose of this work is to present the case study of the regional metropolis Pescara-Chieti and highlight how these fragments can become new complementary centralities with the continuous city. These additional centralities can form a multipolar system with different intensities and contribute to the quality of life in peri-urban areas.

Based on a literature review, a set of indicators and criteria is proposed to identify the city-effect, that is the capacity of the city to offer, attract and contain. The recent paradigms of the 15-min city, reinforce the thesis advocated and the consequent reconfigurations of urban space as a driver of regeneration and mitigation action at different planning levels. The methodology was applied to a conurbation of 14 municipalities in the Abruzzo Region (Italy), with polarity to the city of Pescara. This work reasons with city users, defined as dynamic on the territory by ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics), on the spatial dislocation of amenities and accessibility. The results have underlined the relationship between spatial continuity and functional integration of urban fragments—interested by the movement of internal dynamics—with different degrees of city-effect. For the latter to be triggered, urban fragments must assume the role of new centrality through the urban project to counteract marginality phenomena.