Milan's Southern Margins Proximity Project: Towards Equitable Public Green Spaces as an Everyday Life Infrastructure

Proximity is a key urban concept related to accessibility and public services. Urban population concentration increases density, especially in city centres. Accordingly, while urban public services, which are the ‘infrastructure of daily life’, are concentrated in the central areas of cities, spatial inequalities in accessing essential facilities and services emerge in peri-urban areas. What are the urban design approaches that will provide equal access to public spaces, which are an important part of the daily lives of those living in peri-urban areas, not only physically but also in terms of quality and usability in line with the principle of “proximity”? This study focuses on analysing green spaces, which are an important component of urban public services, within the framework of this holistic “proximity” understanding. Milan, Italy's Lombardy capital and second most populous city, is the case study. Its Milan-Sud peri-urban region, marked by socio-environmental fragility, is the analysis focus. The study's methodology is based on macro and micro-scale spatial analyses of the study area, combined with findings from user interviews conducted during fieldwork. The findings showed that although some parks are accessible in terms of proximity to public services and users, they are not attractive, safe or functional enough. The research analysed the causes of these problems in detail in line with urban design principles and revealed the effects of the design of public green spaces. As a result, it aims to develop design recommendations for the solution of the ‘proximity’ problem experienced in public spaces where users living in urban peripheries can spend most of their daily lives. These proposals aim to increase not only accessibility but also the attractiveness, safety, functionality and social interaction between users.