John L. Thomas, “Holding the Middle Ground,” in The American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy, ed. Robert Fishmann (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000), 38. 2 Bernardo Secchi has pointed out in different occasions the main themes of the next urban question (mobility, environmental question, social justice). Bernardo Secchi afterword to The Next Urban Question, eds. Valentina Bandieramonte et al. (Rome: Officina Edizioni, 2013). 3 On embracing the idea of ecological planning see, Patrick Geddes, “The Third of the Talk from my Outlook Tower: The Valley Plan of Civilization,” Survey Graphic (June 1925): 190–288, 322–25. See also Ian McHargh, Design with Nature (Philadelphia, PA: Natural History Press, 1969). 4 The figure registers the topography in black and white, while color identifies higher and lower urban density. 5 Similar urban patterns, although in absence of the topography as an urban development device, are recognized in the Venice metropolitan area, and called high inten-City and low inten-City. See Paola Viganò, “L’urbanistica come strumento di ricerca” in New Urban Question: Ricerche sulla città contemporanea 2009–2014, ed. Lorenzo Fabian (Rome: Aracne editrice, 2014); Lorenzo Fabian, “Toward No Auto,” in Recycling City: Lifecycles, Embodied Energy, Inclusion, eds. Lorenzo Fabian, Emanuel Giannotti, and Paola Viganò (Pordenone: Giavedoni Editore, 2012). 6 Benton MacKaye, The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928). 7 Paola Viganò, “Water and Asphalt,” Architectural Design 78 (2008). 8 Denis Cosgrove, “The Measures of America,” in Taking Measures across the American Landscape by James Corner (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 8−9. 9 André Corboz, “Un caso limite: la griglia territoriale americana o la negazione dello spazio sub-strato,” in Ordine sparso. Saggi sull’arte, il metodo, la città e il territorio, ed. Paola Viganò (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988). 10 J. L. Cohen, foreword to Frank Lloyd Wright, La città vivente (Turin: Einaudi, 1966), xxviii. 11 Wright describes the right to the ground as one of the three principal human rights, along with the right to the social credit and to the ideas by which and for which he lives.
Frank Lloyd Wright, “Broadacre City: A New Community Plan,” Architectural Record (April 1935): 243−54. 12 Frank Lloyd Wright, “Broadacre City: An Architect’s Vision,” New York Times Magazine, March 20, 1932, 8−10. 13 Complying with Wright’s prospects of a future development in transferring data and information. Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture: The Princeton Lectures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1931).
The Middle Ground as a Whole
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