Spatial and economic smart strategies for the 21st-Century metropolitan city of Naples

The assumption of Neoliberalism in the economy has multiplied exponentially financing speculation, and produced several “distortions” both in the social system and in the job market: the destruction of a welfare program, the attack to the right of the labor market and workers right, the powerful growing of financial institutions supported by the ICT. This means the need to identify a new epistemological approach, suggesting a conceptual framework for ecological economics based on systemic principles of life and a shift from techno-city to a human city. A model, called the homological smart city, could be a new way, based on direct citizen participation, peer-to-peer community, neuroergonomics, biophilic design, and biourban economics. The operational character of this model is explored by analyzing the most recent Italian experiences in reaction to the diffused crisis conditions. Several villages, towns and cities have seen a slow phenomenon of the revival of local communities, for the merit of grassroots’ initiatives of social innovation constituted mostly of young people that, leveraging on their capabilities and a peer-to-peer network supported by the ICT, promote a novel vision for the future of their community, building a more sustainable urban system. Through a change of paradigm, the human being is put at the centre of the system and its designing, considering social innovators as the key actors of change and local assets as the key resources for the implementation of Biourbanism principles. In the above perspective, the experience of a new biourban strategy named “mushrooming”, implemented in Finland, constitutes a good example of practice-oriented to consider diversification as a principle of life in a city and developed by testing with real-life conditions. The Finnish experience was started to build a network to foster interaction between small self-organized co-working communities, by taking into account spatial and economic processes that emerged due to this. These processes were able to activate connected diversification, recognized as a systemic principle of life that fits the context of urban development especially well. The principle of connected diversification drives the methodological process structured for the case study of the Metropolitan City of Naples, one of the 14 Italian metropolitan cities, with a specific attention for the 16 municipalities of the Coast Area. Starting from vulnerability and resilience concepts, the study dealt according to a multi-methodological approach, based on a GeoDesign process supported by multi-criteria analysis, multi-group analysis, and spatial analysis. The elaboration of Spatial Opportunity Maps (SOMs) is the output of a multidimensional evaluation process that leads to the identification of a biourban strategy, characterized by human smart spatial solutions, place-based and situated actions. The enhancement of the coastal area of the Metropolitan City of Naples can be considered as a prerequisite for the activation of a process-oriented to the identification of “homogeneous zones”, conceived not only as areas with similar characteristics but, above all, as territories where it is possible to promote networks of opportunities between the various municipalities and their communities. Cooperation has conceived a source of mutual benefit and involves a mutual convenience, based on the constant construction of bonds and relationships and the interdependence determined by spatial proximity. Economic processes require cooperative-collaborative behaviours between the various components and become increasingly territorialised, and therefore more resilient and, at the same time, less and less associated with the production of negative environmental impact.