Il Lavoro delle Città: Preindustriale e prospettive di ricomposizione del rapporto territoriale

Abstract

This research focuses on the current processes of urbanization through the description and the representation of the geography of contemporary working activities. The suggested analysis of the territory identifies the implications on urban planning caused by the new relations between society and physical space. The research method focused on the observation of the agricultural activity evolution (the pre-industrial work of cities) and of the transformation of its work geography. The countryside and the city, namely the past territorial models we lost, underwent a double metamorphosis which clearly shows that transformation. We studied this double loss and the invisible organization of the contemporary network society. For this reason we examined the agricultural work geography in the Vale do Ave, in the Northwest of Portugal. Vale do Ave is a socio-spatial model where the combined action of de-ruralization and fractal urbanization processes is significantly represented. Indeed, these two phenomena are evident within the Vale do Ave: both the end of the rural economy and culture, and the multiplication of agglomeration and dispersion models of settlements. As it is well known, these processes, rather widespread in Europe, are associated with the evolution of techno-social systems for mobility of people, information, goods and energy, but are also related with their functioning within the global market. The description and the representation of the work geography of a Portuguese company producing and exporting kiwifruits, highlighted the main changes produced in the social organization by the transition from pre-industrial to post-industrial world. Through an interview with the chief administrative officer, we found the location and distribution of company social connections. During the interview we identified the main economic transactions related to work processes, the involved social actors (suppliers, employees and customers) and their exact geographic location. The main result of the methodological sequence can be found in the represented geography of the kiwifruit producers. We identified their 52 orchard areas and infrastructures for the transport of crops to the company headquarter. These data allowed the study of the sociological features of kiwifruit suppliers and to relate them to the settlement systems in which their orchards are located.