Forms of urban change. Nodes of knowledge-based networks as drivers of new metropolitan patterns in Southern Milan

The image of “explosion of the city” (Font, 2007) describes the sprawl process of consolidated European cities within a larger area (Soja, 2011a) and its impacts on contemporary post-metropolitan territories (Soja, 2011b; Knox, 2008). Due to this process, several functions traditionally located in city centres have moved to urban fringes. This movement relies on ambiguous dynamics, where dispersion and concentration coexist, generating original spatial figures (Pavia, 2002; Secchi, 1994; Genette, 1992). During the last ten years, this territorial paradigm has required alternative interpretative frameworks, at times radically different to those currently shared by academia (Portas, Domingues and Cabral, 2011). One approach relies on the updated conceptualization of territorial networks and nodes, both physical and immaterial, in describing territorial dynamics. Accordingly, this chapter focuses on different nodes of knowledge-based networks located in the southern area of the Milan urban region, pointing out (i) their – sometime potential – role as re-activators of metropolitan contexts and (ii) their identity based on the specific quality of urbanity they provide, while also taking into account their different scales.