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Proximal Cities: Does Walkability Drive Informal Settlements?

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  • Valerio Cutini

    (Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università di Pisa, Via Diotisalvi, 2, 56122 Pisa, Italy)

  • Valerio Di Pinto

    (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Ambientale, Università di Napoli Federico II, Via Claudio, 21, 80125 Naples, Italy)

  • Antonio Maria Rinaldi

    (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione, Università di Napoli Federico II, Via Claudio, 21, 80125 Naples, Italy
    IKNOS-LAB—Intelligent and Knowledge Systems—LUPT, Università di Napoli Federico II, Via Toledo, 402, 80134 Naples, Italy)

  • Francesco Rossini

    (School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Lee Shau Kee Architecture Building, Sha Tin, Hong Kong)

Abstract

The uncontrolled growth of urban areas worldwide is pushing a substantial part of the urban population to the fringes of society, confining them to the unsecure and unhygienic settlements that we call “informal.” These settlements lack in intelligible layout and essential services and infrastructures, thus representing a challenging issue for policy makers and urban designers in the development of renewal programs and strategies. In order to support the facing of these issues through an on-site upgrade approach, this paper argues that walkability deeply affects the functioning of informal settlements, so as to propose that they can be identified as “proximal cities,” which expresses the idea that the vital space in informal settlements has soft boundaries and follows a fuzzy logic. A quantitative analysis, based on a configurational approach, and a qualitative analysis, focused on the morphologic features of the settlements, have been implemented. A comparison of the results shows that this approach is suitable to provide a deeper knowledge on informal settlement and informal society under the assumption of their strict mutual connection. A primal definition of proximal cities, suitable for describing some properties of autopoietic urban systems, emerges from the evidence-based relationships between their spatial and social features. In this respect, a case study has been proposed and discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Valerio Cutini & Valerio Di Pinto & Antonio Maria Rinaldi & Francesco Rossini, 2020. "Proximal Cities: Does Walkability Drive Informal Settlements?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:3:p:756-:d:311235
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