Sustainable planning: The carrying capacity approach

The housing need forecast that has to be adopted in local housing policy and land use zoning is today the subject of significant disputes that intersect urban planning and sociological, demographic and geographical aspects. The main contrast is between those who propose a limiting approach based on the need to guarantee the sustainability of urban settlements and those who, conversely, believe that this policy is the cause of significant gentrification, especially in areas where tourist pressure is added to the housing one. A more coherent approach provides for the definition of the territorial carrying capacity on the basis of an adequate number of convenience indicators whose number and characteristics depend on both objectives set and context in which it operates. The thesis of a Research Project carried out at the Department of Architecture of the Federico II University of Naples is that this approach, applied to degraded Mediterranean metropolitan suburbs, allows substantial improvements in the ecological and social qualities of urban settlements, transforming the anthropic pressure from detractor into driver for increasing urban sustainability. This paper illustrates the results of the Research Project achieved with the application of the carrying capacity approach in the town plan project of a medium-small municipality in the metropolitan suburbs of Naples.