The new Azores Regional Plan as a tool to regulate the sprawled growth in the insular Portuguese territory

Introduction Without a coherent shape, in the traditional sense of a form with clearly defined borders (distinguishing urban perimeters and rural/natural boundaries), the urban sprawled growth is not a problem suitable to a simple definition or delimitation (Stern and Marsh 1997) since it is a mostly complex question related to the specificity of each urban area (Carruthers and Ulfarsson 2002). Generally, urban sprawl is ascribed as a mainly negative phenomenon, therefore, many ways to mitigate its negative effects over the city are proposed by many studies. Of course, the evaluation of this phenomenon has to be directly related with the type and dimension of the city; the phenomenon will reach different shapes whether it is related to a big city in a developing or a developed country, for instance. It is although important to bear in mind that this is a non concluded debate and that, thus, there are many arguments and counter-arguments on its “negativity”. Many positive aspects of urban sprawl are indeed pointed out (such as, i.e., a bigger proximity to free rural/natural space or low density housing areas) sometimes even suggesting that this pattern of urban growth is as valid as the compact one. The Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, as an example of an urban expansion model, can illustrate how although a specific social, economic and/or political local context might demand more expansive suburban development patterns, that does not constitute a threat to the people’s satisfaction, neither to the application of a qualified urban design. This paper aims to show how the principles of the cities’ spaces regeneration, diversification and densification can be taken into action through urban planning and, more specifically, through the Azores Regional Plan, by promoting a balance between urban renewal and urban expansion. Assuming that urban sprawl has more negative than positive aspects, it is intended to show how it can be controlled not throughout a radical set of measures, but by a balanced though about a specific local urban demand to grow and “how” and “where” that urban settlement can grow. It is not a question of forbidding or limiting urban expansion but rather to look for new scenarios where urban grow may find its placement, i.e. by facing it to urban renewal, through the occupation of vacant spaces and buildings within the cities centres as a plausible and enjoyable alternative. According to many authors, at least the main problems related to this phenomenon have been already approached, understood and classified. It is now needed to assume it and to give them an efficient response. But how can this be done? The response might be found in the idea that, either by attributing new functions to the void spaces within the city centre, either to the suburban free spaces, the most important thing to change regarding the urban sprawl control, are the «. `rules of the game’ of local economic development, in order to increase the interest of local government in concentrated development and in the preservation of open space» (Razin 1998). In this context, urban planning plays a very important role. The new Azores Regional Plan illustrates how that role can be taken into action, by considering in its orientations some measures to control urban sprawled growth in the Azores territory.