Formal Indicators: Quantifying the Contribution of Form to Urban (Social) Sustainability

The form of cities does affect the way people use cities. The way people use cities does affect the urban quality of life, the richness of local economy, the level of social cohesion, the level of safety and equity, the amount and the kind of human activities in public spaces. The above are all components of the urban sustainability issue. Making a reflection on urban form relevant to urban (social) sustainability, from the point of view of an urban designer, means to develop affordable, reliable and operable planning tools for the analysis of a new family of SDI (Sustainable Development Indicators), which I named Formal Indicators. Formal Indicators are a quantitative measure of some components of urban public space form, identified in previous researches as having a positive impact on two different aspects of social life: 1the amount and the kind of human activities, ie. walking, sitting, doing commercial exchanges, making pictures on a sidewalk, talking, glancing at shop windows ...; 2the quality of urban life. In this paper, after a brief introduction dealing with the relevance of walking and faceto-face interacting in the progress and evolution of social systems (with reference to Niklas Luhmann), the concept of Formal Indicators is presented together with a first review of the relevant literature. In addition, the question of the search of formal components and measurements (Formal Indicators) is addressed.