The least common multiple

Abstract

In order not only to highlight the profound significance of Magnaghi’s established contribution to urban planning, but also to uncover the promising potential of his work for future developments in transdisciplinary, ‘territorial’ research, this contribution integrates a markedly self-governmental interpretation of Magnaghi's ‘minimal bioregional units’ with the possible identification of his pact-based planning tools as Ostromian institutions of collective action. In this way, the paper also highlights the opportunity to move beyond the Darwinian view of fundamental evolutionary units as conspecific wholes in territorial planning practices, in favor of their ‘cybernetic’ (Batesonian) reconceptualization as interspecific coevolutionary complexes.