Urban Abusiveness, Planning and Redevelopment

The present paper proposes a reading of urban abusiveness that has affected Italian cities in recent decades, distinguishing it from the unauthorized building. It addresses the phenomenon within the broader issues of physical planning of the territory, in the awareness of the strong environmental impact it determines. Urban abusiveness has a strong influence on the land's layout and on the consumption, use and protection of the soil, and heavily shapes the redevelopment of many southern Italian cities. The paper is organized in three parts: the first one will focus on recognition of urban abusiveness, that is, with urban/territorial effects, distinguishing it from the phenomenon of unauthorized building; the second one will propose a procedure, based on the overlay-mapping technique, capable of representing the urban-scale phenomenon and the third one proposes guidelines for the drafting of the urban plan (or other territory planning tool), which focuses on the urban regeneration of the settlements affected by this phenomenon.