What If the Solution Has Four Legs?
A Forgotten Road, A Forgotten Park
I usually don’t take that road on my way home. But today, I did. I wanted to see it with my own eyes, now that I’ve started working on a new project: “Regenerative Soil in Urban Areas.” Why are we losing green spaces in our cities? Why is park maintenance no longer sustainable? Why are our parks slowly turning into deserts? The answers are not hidden. They’re right in front of us — and yet, we don’t see them.
The Park That Forgot How to Live
Parco delle Cascine, one of the largest parks in Florence, wasn’t always a park. It was once the private farmland of the Medici family, a place with animals, orchards, and vegetable gardens, just beyond the city walls. Later, when the idea of animals within city limits became less fashionable, the area transformed into a park for the aristocracy: a place for walks, conversation, and community. But in recent years, something has changed. The Cascine are still green, but they're not alive. The soil is exposed and dry. The grass struggles. Dirt dominates. And after nightfall, the park changes mood entirely. Many avoid it. Especially women. Even in groups.
When Science Ignores the Soil
Different administrations have tried to “solve the problem” using a scientific approach, metrics, mapping, simplification. But they fail, again and again. Why? Because human behavior is not quantifiable. Because soil is not just dirt. And because parks are not machines. Some parts of Cascine are still used and cherished, but vast areas are left to neglect, becoming easy territory for illegal activity. And it brings us to a painful question: What is this park for?
Maybe We Should Look Elsewhere
Did we look at other cities? A simple search brings up examples:
“Enfield welcomes a herd of cattle” to naturally manage public green space.
“Cows on Cambridge's commons”, maintaining biodiversity and tradition.
Are these ideas so crazy? After all, this is exactly how the Cascine started. By reintroducing grazing animals and regenerative agriculture, we wouldn’t just “solve a problem”, we’d return to the park’s original purpose. We’d reconnect with Florentine history, and give this space back to the people who need it most, not with cameras or guards, but with life.
What If the Solution Has Four Legs?
We’ve tried fences, patrols, numbers, and statistics. None of it worked. Because parks don’t live on paper. They live through soil, air, plants… and animals.
Imagine walking through the Cascine and instead of emptiness and fear, you see life: goats clearing brambles, sheep grazing, cows and horses restoring the soil. Families stop to watch, children learn where food comes from, students measure biodiversity, and the park itself begins to breathe again. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s the future of urban resilience. Other cities have already embraced it. Florence has the history, the science, and the people to do it better than anyone else. The question is no longer if it can be done. The question is: will we have the courage to let the solution walk back into our park, on four legs?
