Landscape in the Perspective of the Circular Economy and Circular City

Dear Colleagues,

The landscape is as a vital/living resource that changes continuously under the pressure of people’s needs, interests, and hopes. It is the result of a series of choices made by each subject, institution, and the community/society. All current problems are incorporated into the landscape: from climate change to pollution, health, social marginality, economic wealth production, prosperity/poverty.

The landscape perspective is structurally “unifying” because multiple and multidimensional approaches converge onto it: it integrates the social perspective with the environmental, economic, physical, cultural juridical perspectives. Landscape reflects the culture of a society: the way in which each person relates to others and to the nature/environment. And, culture represents the human product, the human creation par excellence. The landscape is a prism that allows us to adopt a human-centered perspective that is focused on the human dimension—there is no landscape where there is no perception by a subject through its different senses.

A landscape-based approach suggests wise conservation/valorization and good management of all existing capitals/resources.

Today, the landscape is being increasingly reshaped by the impacts of climate change, through the increasing number of extreme events (storms, tornados, etc.). A new planning and management model of country and city landscape is needed to improve the landscape’s declining resilience.

The circular economy model is a hybrid model between the economy of nature and the economy of man: between ecology and economy. It is a co-evolutive model that reduces the negative impacts of, for example, greenhouses gases and pollution. The ecological economy inspires the circular economy by conserving the health of natural ecosystems (avoiding waste, improving metabolic processes, etc.) and, thus, the health/wellbeing of human beings. The quality of landscape and the quality of life are strongly interdependent. So much as the circular model is adopted in cities and in territories, so much will the quality of landscape be guaranteed.

Landscape is an effective entry point for implementing the “circular city”. In particular, the 2011 Historic Urban Landscape proposed by UNESCO recognizes this unifying/holistic perspective. The issue of climate change is “incorporated” into the preamble and some paragraphs.

The circular economy model is not formally expressed, but many principles characterizing the circular economy model are nevertheless evoked. The need for the productive and sustainable use of space resources is stressed. A reference is made, in particular, to the efficient use of the environmental resources represented by water and energy. It calls for a strategic vision that goes beyond the short term: it stresses the importance of a long-term vision, which is typical of the circular economy.

In fact, landscape approach in planning recognizes, first of all, the close relationship between conservation and economic development: heritage conservation/valorization and management should be included in the framework of circular economy development strategies of the city/territory system.

Emeritus professor
Guest Editor

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• landscape
• circular economy
• circular city
• model