Le ragioni del territorio e la frammentazione urbana. La sfida del sistema urbano complesso di Taranto = The reasons of territory and urban fragmentation. The challenge of Taranto’s complex urban system

The essay analyzes the transformation of large urban settlements in relation to the morpho-territorial characteristics and historical reasons for the urban form. The theme is highly topical and relevant, as the urban territory is called to respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by globalization, the environmental, health, and raw materials crisis, and climate change. The specific case of Taranto, a city characterized by complexity and fragmentation, is an emblematic example of how modernity has generated processes of uncontrolled expansion and loss of identity and resilience of urban settlements. The essay highlights how urban re-stitching policies, often adopted to counter fragmentation, are not enough to guarantee sustainability, and urban and territorial quality. Instead, the essay theorizes a new form of “territorial deconstruction” of the constituent elements of the previous civilization cycle. Based on urban decompression and the use of the tools already proposed by Giovannoni at the beginning of the 20th century, this process, through the development of equalization policies, aims at a “re-territorialization” based on a new model of urban polycentrism. A model that is more attentive to the complex dynamics and relations that a large urban settlement must be able to assume with the surrounding territory and its constituent elements