The Pocket Park System as a Regeneration Strategy for the Historic City

Pocket parks are small public green spaces often obtained as a result of the redevelopment of residual spaces in the urban fabric. The paper, after having described the characteristic elements of pocket parks, analyses in depth the topic of the pocket park system, which is the possibility of creating themed routes of pocket parks within cities. The article focuses in particular on the older parts of cities. Unlike large public parks, pocket parks distributed throughout the urban fabric can provide children, the elderly and people with mobility issues with greater opportunities of access to green spaces and to spend leisure time in the open. In this way, they can offer a useful contribution to strengthening the sense of community and enhancing the general ecology of the city. The choice of the theme on which to construct the narrative of the project is crucial to the success of a pocket park system. This choice should derive from the history and the vocations of places, it should, in other words, be site-specific. The paper concludes with the description of the project for a themed route of pocket parks for the city of Prato, in Tuscany.