This study revisits a work published by IRPET (Bianchi, 1986), that pointed to the existence in Tuscany of two metropolitan development areas, in other words territories with a high density of residential and productive settlements, and a supply of highly specialized functions in both tertiary and secondary sectors, which attract consistent home-to-work and home-to-school commuting flows.
The mentioned survey showed how these two areas were characterized by different degrees of maturity: the central metropolitan area, constituted by the poles of Florence and Prato and their first urban rings, was already intelligible in the economic indicators, while there were only indications that a second metropolitan area, smaller but no less strategic, was developing along the coast, precisely around Pisa and Livorno.
Today, thirty years after that investigation, the present work aims at verifying whether those first signs of evidence are corroborated. The analysis focuses on the role of Pisa within the coastal metropolitan area and on a comparison with Florence, urban core of the central one.
Pisa and the coastal metropolitan area. Past changes and future potentials by Sabrina Iommi
