ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 164

This study has highlighted some aspects of great interest for the enhancement of mobility and infrastructural connections of Paolo VI district. In particular, these connections would allow: • a high potential of reunification of the district with the rural and environmental system of the northern edge of Mar piccolo. Such condition would make Paolo VI strategic district, in a view of Vast Area, for the speed of connection with the other settlements of Taranto’s inland (among which Grottaglie with its airport, Montesemola and Statte), and for its immediate connection with the urban green belt of Taranto, from which take advantage of “zero kilometre” food products and through which reach new levels of environmental integration. • a new continuity with Taranto, founded on a principle of sustainable mobility (European Commission 2004: 20-49; European Commission 2013) thanks to: • the creation of a light mobility system defined by the transformation of the dismissed railway line Circum Mar Piccolo into electrified surface metro line; • requalification of the system of local road public transport of Circum Mar Piccolo, that would definitively solve the connections on the eastern segment of the town; • creation of a system of waterways mobility that will turn the small harbour area of the ex-shipyards Tosi into an important outflow on the Mar Piccolo and from here a connection point to the whole urban system; • creation of a new train station with intermodal exchange (convergence of the railway, light underground, Circum Mar Piccolo road and beginning of district walk and cycle paths with bike sharing exchange) in contrada Torre Rossa (close to the current shopping centre), as a new urban gate to the district. Towards an experimental district Examining the inside of Paolo VI district the provisions of green areas and facilities have been analysed as well as the settlement skeleton (arterial roads and axis) and the nature of settlement fabric (residential types, settlement distribution, open or closed shape of the fabrics) (Caniggia & Maffei 1979; Rossi 1966; Gibelli 2003:61-62 ). A scarce organisation of the settlement fabric has been observed, along with the almost total lack of diffusion of base services of the district; serious problems of formal articulation and spatial dispersion of the fabric; a significant presence of urban dispersion areas (degraded green areas or simple waste lands), as derived from the coarse zoning policy from the 70s. Moreover, the presence on the edge of the district of a large shopping centre has prevented in time the development of retail trade, eliminating that network of small businesses that actually shape a substantial part of the residential fabric of a town. Such features, associated with the substantial isolation of the district with respect to the remaining part of the town and the characterisation of the buildings fabric founded on an accentuated distance between the bodies and a elevated development in height determines the substantial absence of an urban continuum, transforming the Paolo VI district in an unpleasant and socially fragile dormitory district (Fig. 8 and Tab. 5). 162 ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy