Towards the ‘rurban’ scenario: plural forms of planning in Europe for a new alliance between city and countryside - Verso lo scenario ‘rurban’: forme plurali del progetto in Europa per una nuova alleanza tra città e campagna

In the last decade a growing attention has been devoted to the interdependence between the urban and rural dimensions of territorial development. It is an interest depending by the changing perception of the relations among city and countryside, urban economies and rural economies respect to that provided by the classical political- economic thought in western countries. This process is particularly sharp in Europe, where for spatial, economic, social and cultural reasons, the transition towards a post-industrial society has also led to a broader hybridization of the urban and rural models of development. The aim of the article is rstly to explore the extent of this new sensibility towards urban-rural relations at the European level, particularly through an exploration of policy documents and in- novative projects that have tried in recent years to focus on urban-rural interactions. This framework constitutes the base to critically discuss four di erent dimensions in which the urban-rural relations can be explored from a cogniti- ve and planning perspectives: the landscape and environmental dimension, the social and cultural dimension, the economic dimension, the energy dimension. The conclusive paragraph addresses some speci c challenges for the planning culture in order to improve the e ectiveness of territorial policies towards the urban-rural scenario.