The article discusses the results of research on Chinese new towns focusing on three places: Tongzhou New Town, located in the eastern suburban expansion of Beijing; Zhaoqing New Area, currently being built approximately 20 km from the old city of Zhaoqing (Guandong Province); and Zhengdong New District, located near Zhengzhou (inland Henan Province). Tongzhou, Zhaoqing and Zhengdong have absolutely nothing in common: location, size, spaces, economies, inhabitants, or when and how they were built. However, studying these places allowed us to identify two issues that still seem to be in need of investigation both empirically and theoretically: the spatial features and regional scaling-up of the Chinese urbanisation processes. While presenting these issues, on the one hand, the article emphasises their specificity in the investigated contexts and, on the other, it transcends these specific cases in order to question urban studies beyond the (alleged) exceptionality of Chinese urbanisation. By adopting this approach, Chinese new towns become an object of study as well as a specific viewpoint from which to examine contemporary urbanisation and radically re-discuss old categories, conceptualisations and even the epistemology of the urban.

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Contemporary living is increasingly marked by different kinds of associationisms, collective but not necessarily longlasting actions, and either little or very determined communalities. This article will discuss forms of living that reject individualism and shy away from communities. Indistinct forms, based on living “side by side, walking in step” which Bauman (2002) described as “a desperate need for networking”; and Sennett (2008) said was “the force of wandering emotions shifting erratically from one target to another”. Characterised by values such as ecology, frugality, reciprocity and solidarity. We believe that the key issue is to understand whether these forms are capable, as they say they are, of metaphorically rebuilding the city. In other words, can they implement a different concept of urbanity and public space by adopting the role played in late capitalist cities by conflict, rationality, functionalism, and the market. To tackle the problem we must first understand how they affect three different issues: the first involves changes in the values assigned to living; the second, the new logic of spatial organisation; the third, the revision of the notion of public and its political consequences. In order to provide greater clarity, we will deal with these three issues by briefly referring to European case studies carried out by a group of town-planners and sociologists.

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La diffusione di produzioni agricole specializzate consente di osservare il modo in cui stanno cambiando porzioni importanti della campagna contemporanea italiana. Tali produzioni difatti assumono in Italia caratteri particolari che le sottraggono a molte delle osservazioni (e delle generalizzazioni) che nella letteratura internazionale guardano gli spazi dell'agricoltura specializzata come piattaforme monofunzionali, regolate da rigide infrastrutturazioni e da sofisticati programmi logistici che le escludono dai contesti entro i quali sono collocate. Le differenze appaiono particolarmente rilevanti a Capo Pachino, dove la produzione specializzata di pomodori, seppure presente da oltre mezzo secolo, e capace di generare un'economia di grande importanza a livello non solo locale, ha costruito spazi segnati da una certa instabilità delle organizzazioni e transitorietà delle forme. Questa infrastrutturazione debole di Capo Pachino, che da un lato comporta fragilità enormi di gestione e governo del comparto produttivo, garantisce dall'altro anche il suo dinamismo, la sua apertura e la sua capacità di essere attraversato da usi e relazioni molteplici. È in ragione di questi caratteri che l'articolo muove alcune riflessioni di natura progettuale e operativa sulla relazione tra produzione specializzata e trasformazione delle campagne contemporanee