Moving through the Quarries Park. The case of Brescia

Since the Eighties of the last century European industrial cities have lived deep transformations which changed their economic model. Such transformations, and the environmental problems left on the ground, imply the need to rethink the urban model towards higher levels of sustainability. Until some years ago the peri-urban spaces in the southeastern area of Brescia were characterised by the exploitation of gravel mining. Today, through a participatory process driven by the population these spaces are becoming the biggest urban park in the city. The methodology used to study this landscape transformation is based on a participatory approach, considering in particular the participatory action research - PAR (Kindon et al., 2007). We created a participatory map of the cultural ecosystem services in the Park looking at the perception of the stakeholders, focusing on the local community. The analysis also includes data about the accessibility to these cultural ecosystem services.