Turin transformed Mirafiori Sud — the postwar heart of Fiat's car-factory city — from a symbol of industrial decline into a community-led green neighborhood where urban agriculture, nature-based regeneration and local food production rebuilt both the environment and local economy.
As Fiat’s main production site, Mirafiori Sud's population grew from just 3,000 in in the late 1930s to 40,000 by the early 1970s. The district’s identity was built almost entirely by its grey, car-oriented industrial infrastructure and manufacturing. When automotive production declined, following the global oil and automotive industry crisis in 1973, the district quickly lost residents and became associated with high crime and stagnant economic opportunity. By 2011, it had fewer family units than any other neighborhood in Turin, along with limited public green spaces and few local economic opportunities.
- Founded Fondazione della Comunità di Mirafiori in 2008 as a locally embedded, semi-public foundation to give the district's regeneration process an institutional “home” (rather than routing it through city hall)
- Piloted nature-based solutions (NBS) in a post-industrial context, testing how green infrastructure could restore ecosystems while creating new social and economic opportunities
- Converted 50,000 square meters of vacant industrial land into community gardens, an educational farm and an eco-pasture, bringing food production back into the neighborhood
- Restored Parco Colonnetti via public-private investments and built a renewable-energy community into the site, including 6,400 kilowatt-hours of solar generation and windbreak barriers
- Established the slow-food-anchored Mirafiori Food Community and later, the FUSILLI project, turning local food production into a tangible district economy
- Created the city's interdepartmental Food Policy working group directly out of the Mirafiori project, moving food governance from a neighborhood pilot into standing City of Turin policy
- Built Orti Generali's allotment system to ensure that young people, low-income residents and vulnerable groups could access dedicated plots and shared garden spaces
- Created ongoing forums and community agreements that enabled residents and local organizations to help shape and manage neighborhood gardens and public spaces
- Expanded a garden program from 0 participants in 2019 to more than 270 active groups, with a waitlist of more than 1,200 people for a plot by 2025
- Grew Orti Generali's annual revenue from €0 in 2018 to roughly €250,000 in 2024
- Created a local micro-economy of 17 food producers and shops
- Restored over 500,000 square meters of green spaces across the district
- Removed 158 quintals of waste from Parco Colonnetti alone, backed by more than €1.3M in public-private investments
- Delivered 2.5 tons of donated food annually to vulnerable households
- Connected 25,000 households to a food-solidarity hub, Casa nel Parco
- Recorded measurably higher perceived well-being and social support in district surveys following nature-based interventions, with 94% of visitors reporting a neighborhood improvement attributable to the changes
- Engaged over 1,000 teenagers through the Mirachallenge and other youth-led initiatives, including an escape room, a marathon design and a €5,000 youth investment fund
- Drew more than 22 international delegations by 2023
- Named a European best-practice case, with the model replicated within Turin itself at Cascina Falchera and referenced by delegations from Limerick, Osmangazi and Sarajevo
