The Network of the Villages of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, a Complex Attraction in the Design of Quality and Safety of the Territory

The territory of the metropolitan city of Reggio Calabria is complexand fragile; a complexity derived from a territorial and social structure, the resultof the millennial history of man’s work on a difficult nature, the result of whichis a contamination between the natural environment and the anthropic elementsthat shape and structure the places. The fragility referred to the physical-urbandimension and to the aspects of the structure of the social structure, also concernsthe management of services and public spaces, connections and urban andterritorial infrastructures, as well as demographic aspects: many of these urbancenters in the last decade have undergone abandonment and depopulation withvalues often above the national average.Interventions on a territory with these characteristics are therefore linked to aneed to adapt to new needs and therefore in this specific case, to a change in theconcept of efficiency closely linked to the notion of use, function and quality ofspace and places. Imagining the network of villages, the beating heart of thiscontext, means thinking of a metropolitan area aimed at increasing the efficiencyof services, spaces and commons. It means strengthening the cultural level of thecommunity to create awareness and commitment towards the protection andenhancement of the identities of the places.Networking also means facilitating physical and social accessibility to placesand services; this plays a fundamental role in the equilibrium of the metropolitanarea because it affects the propensity of users to experience the metropolitanspace in conditions of safety.