The Process of Metropolisation and Spatial Accessibility. The Case Study of the Cagliari Metropolitan City.

With the complex processes of metropolisation, increasingly broad and reticular, which connect and mix different settlement forms (central areas, suburbs, medium-sized cities, peri-urban areas…) the spatial reorganization of land-use and urban functions also manifests itself: residence, work, services, study, trade and leisure. Furthermore, the consequences on the distribution of urban functions and on the transport system are also substantial, radically transforming the lifestyle of the communities, especially for the more numerous ones in peripheral areas. Accessibility is a key issue for scientific disciplines applied to territorial governance. In fact, it expresses the level of organization of the territory and in particular of the services, for this reason it is considered as a fundamental aspect for its proper functioning. Furthermore, with the transition from the municipal administrative dimension to the metropolitan one, accessibility assumes a preponderant role for the governance of the metropolitan cities/region increasingly characterized by multi-directional and multi-purpose mobility and by a significant vulnerability of the community. In this framework, the aim of the paper is to develop a methodological approach to support metropolitan city planning (policy target) through the combination of spatial autocorrelation of the different accessibility intensities (private and public) and social-material vulnerability index (SMVI).