Identity And Evidence

The recognisability is linked to the difference, the non-approval of all the places. So the urban identity is determined by the correlation between the differences, hence the unique originality of each city. The relational space of the contemporary city is a kind of flexible territory, devoid of figurative recognizability, but full of service potentialities. It follows that the contemporary social complexity generates the proliferation of a multitude of identities, in turn carrying expressions of self-representation, for which it is determined a typological explosion that tends more and more to escape the Habitual classifications, configuring a city as summation of independent and often contrasting elements. But the contemporary city also sees in the continuous change and more and more accelerated the search for its own identity, in the provisional, in the figuration of a sort of "programmed chaos". The Cities express the culture of those who live and inhabited them: the globalization of homing, is true, but also pushes to accentuate diversity and identity as a reaction against. It also loosened the reports of identification of economic entities with the city, seen as simple management and infrastructural support of activities largely dependent on the outside. Therefore, the interactions between the cities acquire intensity not so much from the reciprocal distance but increasingly from the respective specializations, so a city can entertain multiple functional relationships and need as many identities. On the other hand, it increases the need for cities to establish themselves as poles of attraction both for capital and for individuals, and this should involve the accentuation of the characters of the place: more than its reality becomes important the image of the city "offer". So the cities are equidating multiple identities, at least how many are the souls that compose them and some are even "imaginations" and all together they contribute to define a "brand". The dimensions of the cities vary, but the self-identifying phenomena remain the same: Milan as a European metropolis (Figures 1-3) and Bologna as a middle regional city (figures 4-5) give us clear examples of what is happening.