L'innovazione alla prova: gli spazi condivisi a Milano nell'era Covid-19

This paper aims to present the complex experience of "Giardini condivisi" (Community gardens) that, over the last decade, has been undertaken in the territory of Milan thanks to some groups of citizens and local associations. These initiatives have testified the ability of some bottom-up processes to actively influence the behaviour of local governments, proving that even self-organised initiatives can be an adaptive response to the intentions and needs of citizens. These “Giardini condivisi” have been considered, by the communities and the Municipal Administration (especially through an act of 2012), as reasonable devices to give back a use and a new functional meaning to small unused or underused spaces of public property (vacant land).