Virtual or real megaregions?: the case of linear metropolitan system in northern Italy

Abstract

Nowadays we are witnesses of a frenetic and chaotic development of contemporary cities. After the rising of metropolis (with the industrial revolution), the strong economic pulse during last decades caused the rising of new urban entities, at first called megalopolis, now called megaregions. These new entities are formed by two typologies of land: a polycentric system of metropolis and cities with highanthropogenic-pressure levels, where buildings (residential, industrial, commercial) are distributed along traffic corridors and form an urban continuum; a supporting ecological region with low-anthropogenic-pressure levels. These two typologies are both parts of the same system (the megaregion): if one exists the other one should exist as the counterpart that could maintain the system balanced, primarily from the ecological point of view.