Body facilitating urban environments and informal sport facilities in the urban setting: a comparative research

The article presents a part of a qualitative research based, from a theoretical point of view, on the relationship between body, town planning and public space. The applicative field concerns a study carried out through interviews and observations about the active city perspective and about the projects involving citizens in planning sports and recreational areas. The research compares several European case studies. The focus of the speech is on the informal or semi structured public spaces which become body facilitating environments allowing everybody to practice physical activity and sports. Those urban landscapes encourage walking (walking groups, safe route to school, urban trekking), jogging, cycling, playing, and post modern activities like skate board and parkour, as well as a wide range of bodily practices and sports, often brought by migrants, like cricket, ecua-volley, pelota, petanque, and flag throwing. A body facilitating environment, together with information, sensitization, and educational actions, can play a crucial role in the promotion of the practice of physical activity, sports, and active lifestyles also for people in disadvantaged situations. Sometimes those environments are intentionally planned and built, sometimes are historical parts of the urban weave, in other cases they are object of informal appropriation, in much rarer cases they are the results of collaborative planning. The analysis of the cases shows the need of tailoring projects and procedures for the specific context. Nonetheless, the inter-sector cooperation, the intelligent management of policies concerning public space, the monitoring, the strong attention to the processes, and the motivation to involve citizens in planning more sustainable environments, are between the most successful factors.