milan MAPPING

By Andrea Boschetti, Federico Parolotto - 10 December 2018

This issue concludes the first TheCityPlan cycle, which over the last five years has taken us on an exciting voyage of discovery of on-going changes to some of the world’s most beautiful and well-known cities. We hope that our articles have given you valuable insights and added to your knowledge. TheCityPlan has gathered a large following over the years and is read by many with great interest. The section’s new editors will continue to provide informative reports on how the world’s cities are being transformed. Our sincere thanks go to all those who contributed to TheCityPlan’s success. These include our graphic designers and GIS operators, The Plan editorial staff and of course, its editor-in-chief who supported the idea of the section from the outset. The first city explored by TheCityPlan - Milan - will also be the last, bringing the section full circle. This is very fitting since Milan is one of the most go-ahead cities, currently undergoing profound transformation. Not only far reaching, the changes are important for the quality and innovation they are introducing to a city that is becoming an exemplar of virtuous urban development. As has been our practice over the years, we examine the city with our GIS maps indicating population, city-workers density, services and amenities, public transport provision, natural vegetation, and geographic features. The graphic highlights added to these public domain maps allow us to provide a clear picture of Milan today. The population distribution map points up two typical features of the city: the expansion to the north, where the contour map shows the presence of consolidated water-based infrastructure and an amenable landscape sloping gradually up to the foothills of the Alps. In contrast, the outlying areas to the south remain prevalently agricultural. Here, the wetter, clayey terrain at risk of flooding has led to less intensive urbanization, albeit with a few exceptions. As with many other...