Urbanism, like any other subject, evolves by adapting criteria and points of view from other areas, incorporating innovative elements, scientific approaches, and popular participation as a way of understanding the mechanisms of communities. urban theory has needed to evolve to incorporate extralocal and global processes to the understanding of the urban phenomenon.
Industrial estates bathe our territory, fragmenting habitats and natural spaces, occupying large areas of artificial land, polluting activities are carried out, generating a high degree of impact on the territory as a whole. The functional areas and the Axes of Territory Transformation should be considered an opportunity to transform the industrial conurbation into environments that integrate and extract value from the environment.
The progress of the Territorial Planning Guidelines (D.O.T.) underlines the importance of green infrastructure and climate change as elements of great importance for urban and territorial planning. The Basque Country has areas of high natural value with protected spaces (SCI, ZEC, ZEPA of the Natura 2000 Network, among others), which are increasingly facing greater pressure due to urban growth, economic activities and road infrastructure. Many times, industrial and business estates are part of these unique spaces, which highlights the importance of making economic activities compatible with the environment, advancing in the objective of minimizing their impact on the ecosystem balance of the territory.
Nature must come closer and enter the artificial soils that flood our territory. Providing a naturalized vision to industrial frameworks multiple benefits can be achieved while embarking on a path towards more environmentally friendly environments, favoring the coexistence between urbanized spaces and natural spaces.
The opportunities that nature offers us are numerous and applying them to the industrial environments of our territory could trigger a new way of considering territorial development, promote the modernization of industrial estates, attract economic activity, promote green employment, promoting participation and reinforcing the social commitment to contribute to the improvement of our lifestyles.
Juan Iglesias
Environmental Urbanist
NAIDER