NAPLES 2020: the view from the sea for local sustainable development of the metropolitan coast

Abstract

Naples was a capital and a port very important at European level in the past centuries, but at the present day it lives a period of social and economic decline and weakness. The maritime identity and the metropolitan dimension are two pillars on which we canrebuild the future of Naples and itsGulf.
The view from the sea (Clemente, 2011) opens new perspectives to identifymetropolitan coast potentialities and resources. The challenge is define strategies for sustainable - environmental, social, economic –development having the sea askey resource and involving the whole metropolitan city.
The group “City and Architecture”, coordinated by who is writinghas been active sinceseveral years on the connection between the sea and the city through researchs, workshops, conferences and publications. In this special issue of TRIA, we selected considerations, analysis and proposals coming from different learningsabout various parts of the metropolitan coast, from Sorrento’s peninsula to the Phlegrean coast.
The first contributions group illustrates different approaches and visions based on dialogue among different disciplines, to express the richness of the sea-city link, including local and global dimension and identifying the coastline as a sensitive and distinctive «limit»(Rigillo, Santangelo, Piscopo, Zeuli, Forte).
The second group enters into the merits of analyses, plans and projects on the metropolitan coast of Naples that, well-defined during the conferences “The sea and the city” in the years 2012 and 2013,have been investigated and developed (Castagnaro,Moccia, Losasso, Rigillo, Esposito De Vita, Ragozino, Daldanise, Guida, Pica Ciamarra, Buonfantino, Carughi).
The third contributions group gives attention to the Neapolitan port as a connection between sea and the metropolitan city, an instrument for the economic and productive growth respecting social and environmental issues, andplace of local sustainable development based on sea resource (Coletta, Frallicciardi, Cuccurullo, Russo, Gasparrini, Buonanno, Coppola, De Matteo, Manzo, Nigro, Castigliano, E. Borrelli, M. Borrelli, di Chio, Acierno).
The metropolitan coast’s redevelopment and enhancement has to be based on”maritime awareness” and focused on sustainable development, combining the general perspective with specific projects. The metropolitan vision can become true with local bottom-projects that bring together different interests oriented to the common goal. We propose this route for Naples 2020as metropolitan city of the sea.