Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Strategic guidelines for the reform of greenery management in the city of Milan.

The strategic guidelines, which represent a common vision that mobilizes and directs the energies, economic and human resources both internal and external to the administration, are described in the following decalogue:

1. Green spaces are the city's heritage and are the cornerstone of the quality of urban life: existing and future public spaces integrate with gardens and private spaces, with the countryside and waters, with farmhouses, agricultural spaces, greenery in schools and spaces for free use in a single system that gives shape to the city by integrating it with the metropolis.

2. Every type of green space, public and private, forms a heritage that contributes to the well-being of citizens and the aesthetic quality of the city, a common good to be developed through a governance process coordinated by the Municipal Administration. Investing in greenery, in the liveability of spaces, their pleasantness and usability is a conscious choice of metropolitan welfare, which considers greenery a vital service for citizens.

3. Milan must increase, protect, configure, care for and recover its heritage of green areas by looking beyond administrative borders. Green development must be planned in a metropolitan, supra-municipal context and with a long-term time horizon. It is necessary to combine a systemic vision of the entire green heritage with the capacity for territorial planning down to individual micro-planning.

4. The development of greenery requires a systemic vision of the landscape, respecting its diversification, based on ecological interconnections and the physical connection of existing greenery through slow paths and water. The figure of Milan Verde is open and inclusive, it is made up of a system of central urban green areas connected by the design of the historic city and by four large metropolitan park areas: The North Park and its extensions, the Lambro Milanese River connected to the PLIS Media Valle Lambro, the southern park with its urban bridgeheads, the western park system. Green breaks the circle of the built city, overcomes borders, designs the city of the future. 

5. Vision and management of Milan's greenery are based on the valorisation, rediscovery and reconnection of an extraordinary heritage already available which only needs to be made visible, usable and accessible (also considering temporary uses). The historical value of greenery is recognized, enhancing and protecting the preciousness of historic gardens and plant specimens of greater age or size. 

6. Vision and management of greenery are based on the recognition of a plurality of subjects who participate in the development of greenery in a direct and indirect way, through widespread creative resources, knowledge and care skills. Good governance is based on the participatory quality of the process of sharing and continuous implementation of this vision under the role of regulator of the central municipal administration and of the decentralization zones in competition with other competent bodies in the area and on public-private subsidiarity. Examples of this model are the participation of citizens in the management of green areas, with the strategic plan of the rural district of Milan, urban gardens, the direct management of local agricultural associations and businesses. The direct participation in the care of the greenery of multiple subjects has the aim of expanding the services offered, establishing an active citizenship that feels the territory is their own, strengthening a mutual relationship of trust and credibility with the Administration. The potential of participatory green care for the integration and improvement of the quality of life through the mending of the human fabric in its territory is recognised. 

7. The management of large parks is a testing ground for the metropolitan city: it involves a direct body/management + directors of the peri-urban parks/parks so as to guarantee the necessary proximity to the themes and problems. A unity of the large park system is pursued, avoiding uniformity between parks.

8. The creation and care of Milan's greenery is based on agronomic and landscape principles, in the choice of species, plantations and pruning, aimed at maximizing biodiversity, diversifying the landscape, containing maintenance costs, favoring perennial species and species capable of providing sustenance and refuge for urban fauna, as well as self-purifying capabilities for waterways in order to combine development and economic management, decorum and beauty.

9. The green of the parks and the blue of the waters constitute an indispensable principle of city identity for Milan: Milan is permeated by a large system of parks crossed by the waters of the canals, its rivers (Olona, ​​Seveso, northern Lambro and southern Lambro), of the main branches of the minor water network (Vettabbia, Ticinello, etc), restored and safe, of the fountains and quarry lakes appropriately recovered, it develops without consuming land and returns to being a habitable city. The fundamental role of green areas in urban drainage and for the absorption of rainwater is recognised.

10. Rethinking the development of Milan through greenery and water means triggering a gentle revolution that places the environment at the center of policies for the future of the city and its citizens, including those with disabilities. This gentle revolution considers silence, free space for free use, refreshment, air quality, the possibility of moving safely and in greenery as factors of quality of life and work and therefore of development and international competition. Milan will be the city of the green revolution, the rural GreenCity after Expo 2015.

The aforementioned guidelines will be the reference for deepening and developing all future issues relating to greenery, continuing the collaboration with the Milanese excellences already involved to individually develop the shared concepts.