The post-pandemic recovery, along with a rising awareness of the need for ecological and digital transitions, are speeding up urban renewal. Ongoing transformations are made more complex by the profound changes ushered in by new technologies and their pivotal importance during periods of social distancing. The most important of these is surely an exponential increase in the use of teleworking, which has altered urban geographies and set a new tipping point between real and virtual. Thus, although it remains a physical space, the changing physical city also becomes a digital mental space as well. This because the urban dimension has always been one where creativity and political, economic and social innovation thrive; also because the renewal following in the wake of the pandemic calls for a new attitude, a new approach and a new order.
The physical and mental spaces of urban renewal have the added advantage of being able to intersect in new districts devoted to innovation. While teleworking has proved that it is not always necessary to meet in person in order to be productive, creativity nevertheless remains a social phenomenon best fed by the kind of physical exchange and contact that generate innovative thinking.
Italy now has a chance to leave behind a tradition of “closed innovation” and look to those models of success in which open innovation has become the key to producing ideas. In this sense, the repurposing of the former Milan Expo fairgrounds as the Milan Innovation District (MIND) offers an opportunity to recreate the kind of fertile terrain that has been driving development in other parts of the world, notably Silicon Valley, right here in Europe. The presence of diverse and complementary actors is crucial, and these include everything from university research centers to major corporations, start-ups and financial sector operators. All with the ability to attract the sort of highly-skilled human capital essential to extending the excellence of the physical space (based on sustainable, decarbonized and liveable spaces) to that of the mental space.
What is also important is that this public/private partnership is leading to the enhancement of government lands in a way that not only generates urban renewal but also creates opportunities for economic and social growth. The challenge of MIND is to provide a model to both Italy and Europe – thanks to its ability to harness the opportunities of a vast region (Lombardy) that, in addition to the Milan metropolitan area, includes the excellent prospects of the entire north of Italy – with a view to contributing and developing new ideas for a world under reconstruction. All this in the awareness that, given enough energy and critical mass, the process is capable of providing a wide range of benefits and has the potential to be replicated in other parts of Italy. Indeed, the physical and mental energies being poured into urban renewal now must bear in mind the goal of increased equality and the use of new technologies not to enlarge distances but to mend the social rifts that were further accentuated during the pandemic.