Renewable Land: Planning the Evolution of Logistic Areas

Abstract

Land is the support of life and the generator of energy cycles in the planet, also being a finite resource. The first consequence of urban population growth and build environment expansion is land consumption. Present strategies reduce this expenditure, generally by attenuating dispersive growth, favouring compact city models and reusing built inventory. From current urban land, a noteworthy percentage is assigned for logistic use and this proportion is increasing as a consequence of delocalized economies. However, planning strategies seem to overlook these areas when addressing the mentioned issues. The common localization of these zones, well-connected and placed in the influence area of a city, gives them a high probability to be absorbed by the mixed-use urban tissue during the process of city growth. Planning urban logistic land considering its possible future conversion into mixed-use urban fabric becomes a pressing concern. The study analyses industrial areas that have been transformed into mixed-use urban tissue to, subsequently, stablishing a correlation between them and current logistic zones. In the case of logistic areas, special attention should be paid to transportation infrastructures, legislation and land-use organization, ecosystem preservation and mixed-use progressive introduction. The objective is to foster the planning of logistic land considering its potential future re-use and transformation into mixed-use urban tissue with low energy and environmental costs.