Public space and life in the city. Six challenges for a society in transformation

The city is a human and spatial construction in a constant state of becoming. It has always been fertile ground for the creation of new concepts and ideas and the production of opportunities. The city is the ensemble and tangible representation of all the changes that have happened and take place in it. Today, more than in the past, the changes that occur in cities take place one after the other at a swift pace and are interconnected. They also seem to generate more questions than answers. The effects they induce are not always immediately clear and legible; they often emerge gradually before becoming stable and durable.The contribution presented in this paper, proposes some reflections on the impact that some great social and environmental changes (megatrends) produce on outdoor public space of the cities. Among the great changes that are taking place, the article focuses on six great and strongly interrelated challenges: demographic changes, multiculturalism, the need to create more inclusive and cohesive societies, the person-nature relationship, global warming and finally, the contribution of the new technologies for enhancing services and urban life in general. These challenges strongly condition the role and usage of public space and, therefore, also have a strong effect, for better or worse, on city-life. The main objective of the paper is to identify, among the phenomena analysed, those aspects that are more pertinent to the theme of urban design and of the redevelopment of public space, synthetically illustrating the challenges to address, the issues to overcome, and some positive experiences.