Livable Proximity: Ideas for the City that Cares

by Ezio Manzini MA

Overview

“Livable Proximity is a passionate and compelling call for a remaking of the city under a novel paradigm of relationality and care by one of the most accomplished design thinkers of our time.” – ARTURO ESCOBAR This book is a contribution to the social conversation on the city and its future. It focuses on an idea that has been in circulation for some time and that, in recent years, has received greater attention: that of a city in which everything that is needed for daily life is just a few minutes away by foot from where people live. In addition, it speaks of a city in which this functional proximity corresponds to a relational proximity, thanks to which people have more opportunities to encounter each other, support each other, care for each other and the environment, and collaborate to reach goals together. Ultimately, it is a city built starting from the life of the citizens and an idea of livable proximity in which they can fi nd what they need to live, and to do so together with others. The underlying theme that this book poses is thus the following: can we construct the contemporary city starting from a new idea of proximity? The response given is yes, it can be done. The social innovations of the last 20 years in fact indicate where to start. Many cities in the world, including Paris, Barcelona, and Milan have made a commitment and are taking steps in this direction, offering concrete examples of what this city of proximity could be: a city in which social innovation, care, common goods, communities of place, and enabling digital platforms become the keywords of a new and widespread social capacity to design.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788831322386
Publisher:	EGEA Spa - Bocconi University Press
Publication date:	01/03/2022
Pages:	172
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Ezio Manzini is a leading thinker in design for sustainability and the founder of DESIS, an international network on design for social innovation and sustainability. Currently, he is Honorary Professor at Politecnico di Milano. He has taught at several international schools, such as Elisava (Barcelona), University of the Arts (London), Parsons (NYC), Tongji University (Shanghai). His most recent books include Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation (2015) and Politics of the Everyday (2018).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Trajectories of Proximity 9

1.1 What is proximity? 10

Box 1.1 Dimensions of proximity 10

1.2 Functional proximity and relational proximity 11

Box 1.2 Project-based communities 12

1.3 Diversified proximity and specialized proximity 14

1.4 Technical innovation and hybrid proximity 16

Box 1.3 Distributed systems 17

1.5 Social innovation and relational proximity 19

Box 1.4 Social Innovation 19

1.6 Cultural innovation and more-than-human proximity 21

Box 1.5 Systems of proximity and the web of life 22

1.7 Livable proximity 23

2 The City of Proximity 27

2.1 The city of common goods 27

Box 2.1 Common goods and community 29

2.2 The city of distances and its crisis 31

2.3 Competing scenarios 32

2.4 Everything in less than 15 minutes, but not only 33

Example 1 Paris and the 15-minute city 34

2.5 Functional proximity and "minimum ecological units" 37

Example 2 Barcelona and the superilles 38

2.6 Relational proximity, local networks, and cosmopolitism 40

Box 2.2 Cosmopolitan localism 42

2.7 The double link between functional and relational proximity 44

2.8 Encounters, meeting places, and the molecular dimension of the city 46

Box 2.3 Anti-epidemic proxemics 48

2.9 Local communities, diversified proximity, and resilience 49

2.10 Streets, squares, common goods, and proximity 51

Box 2.4 Remote work as a regenerative agent Ivana Pais 52

3 The City that Cares 59

3.1 Care and proximity / Care is proximity 60

Box 3.1 Being in contact without contact 62

3.2 Care is also care work 63

Box 3.2 The nature of care work 66

3.3 Careless cities 67

3.4 Services that help collaborate 70

Box 3.3 Capabilities and enabling systems 74

3.5 Communities of care 75

Example 3 The circle model for the construction of communities 76

3.6 Proximity that cares 80

Example 4 Social Superilles and localization of services 81

3.7 Care, communities, and hybrid proximities 84

Example 5 Radars: a network of human sensors 86

Example 6 WeMi: a platform and many hybrid places 87

3.8 Redistributing care work 89

3.9 A new ecology of time 91

3.10 Density and economies of proximity 92

4 Designing to Bring Close 99

4.1 Technical and social infrastructure as platforms of opportunity 100

4.2 From the city of distances to the city of proximity 103

4.3 Stimuli and attractors of the social conversation 107

4.4 Communities of place as an interweave of projects 110

Example 7 North of Loreto, a neighborhood as a project-based incubator Davide Fassi 110

4.5 Construction and regeneration 116

Example 8 Collaborative living at maturity: the experience of the social housing foundation in Milan Giordana Ferri 117

4.6 From the heroic phase to transformative normality 122

4.7 Designing in proximity and for proximity 126

4.8 Community, proximity, projects 128

Box 4.1 Designing in complexity 130

Proximate Future. Cities of Proximity and Digital Platforms Ivana Pais 135

Defining the concept of digital platform 136

Platforms of livable proximity and questions of governance 139

The new municipalism 142

The relational (but not only) dimension of digital platforms 143

The sharing economy 144

Urban platforms and local roots 148

Sharing cities 151

Proximate future: platforms as new "local collective goods"? 154