Verso una nuova dimensione metropolitana

The current process of territorial diffusion urban has shown not only that the advantages
of agglomeration can become problems (congestion, increase of transport costs, loss of
environmental-quality) but also that these benefits can be achieved without agglomeration. The diffuse city works very much as a concentrated city with a complete different morphology but with the same social and functional characteristics. In this process, in which the central city has kept many of the cultural, economic and commercial functions, it can be seen that some of these functions has followed the diffusion pattern and that they have been relocated in middle and small size cities, leading to what the author calls metropolitan archipelagos. Although these diffusion processes have an apparently high component of
self-organization, it is argued here that when the diffusion process is publicly guided and
governed, the diffuse city is better organized and the negative effects can be minimized.