The urban bioregion as form and project of the co-evolution between urban and rural domain. the case of the Florence metropolitan area

The article explores the opportunity of recovering, in planning practices, the ‘urban bioregion’ concept, as key feature for fostering balanced and co-evolutionary polycentric urban regions. That allows to point out, as in the case described relatively to Florence MA, the need to adopt integrated and bottom-up approach, in order to overcome routine and path-dependent practices in periurban areas and to integrate spatial planning and countryside ruling and design tools.