Sustainability Challenges in Redevelopments. Insights from the re-use of seven rail yards in Milan

In a time of climate change emergency, contemporary urban planning pursues the enhancement of natural elements combined with local and wide area green networks as an answer to ecological and environmental issues. Regenerating abandoned urban land follows a multifunctional and multiscale approach to the integration of open and green spaces with soft mobility networks and blue infrastructure in order to improve citizen wellbeing. In this perspective, the City of Milan has implemented regeneration policies based on the extension of parks and green connectivity since the first Urban Plan, PGT (Urban Plan) approved in 2012, and continued in the recently approved PGT 2030. As a crucial part of public policies the reuse of seven Milan rail yards suggests the possibility of matching urban redevelopment with a potential widespread regeneration of surrounding urban parts. International competitions for the rail yards have shown different aspects of regeneration aiming to stress the environmental priorities. The crucial question of this re-urbanisation process regards two aspects. The first is related to the ability of such transformations to regenerate urban settlements at the city and metropolitan scale. The second issue tries to investigate to what extent a public –driven approach can effectively achieve public interest.