Planning peri-urban areas at regional level: The experience of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna (Italy (original) (raw)

The governance of peri-urban areas in Lombardy (IT): the strengths and weaknesses of the regional territorial governance system

Valori e Valutazioni

This article illustrates the measures adopted by the Lombardy Region to plan peri-urban areas at the regional level. These territories typically have urban and rural characteristics and extend beyond municipal administrative boundaries. Their characteristics and extension prevent their precise delimitation and make it difficult to elaborate plans that can effectively regulate their development. These difficulties appear insurmountable for some municipalities that ignore these territories in their planning instruments or regulate only that part of the peri-urban territory within their administrative limits. Decisions at the regional level are relevant to overcome these difficulties. Planning at the municipal level transposes regional prescriptions. In contrast, jurisdiction at the regional level is supra-municipal and, therefore, potentially enables the reduction of the existing gap between governance and peri-urban patterns at the local level. The relevance of regional intervention ...

Planning Systems in Italy within the Context of New Processes of ‘Regionalization’

The purpose of the following paper is twofold. The rst part aims to make sense of some of the efforts and contradictions in building a planning system and reinforcing a general notion of planning in Italy within the context of new processes of 'regionalization'. In particular, it questions the terms in which the issue of local autonomies are being discussed under the current National Reform process. The second part explains in more detail how the territorial (planning) system s work in Italy, focusing on the changes in public administration and the new planning laws. Finally, it gives a dynamic example between levels and government institutions in a regional environment following the introduction of a new tier.

Institutional rescaling, urban policy and planning innovation in Italy: is city- region the answer?

2016

A consequence of the crisis for several European countries is the return of cities and urban policy within the national agenda. It is not a uniform process, since the emergence of political priorities related to the urban areas may be influenced by several domestic factors, including the legal framework, institutional organisation, approaches to planning and other issues for policy-making. An interesting perspective to observe these processes is to analyzing the question of metropolitan areas and city-regions which, despite the difficulties, all over Europe are increasingly seen as a crucial government scale to cope with some old (decentralisation, economic competitiveness, social cohesion) and new challenges (resilience, climate change) for regional development. Italy is a well representative case of this trend for the convergence of two processes that have recently refocused on urban regions new political expectations after decades of failed attempts and inertia. The first is an i...

REGIONAL PLANNING FACING GLOBAL CHALLENGES: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES IN THE ITALIAN CASE

This paper focuses on the models and practices of regional spatial planning activated in Italy in recent years, in order to evidence the innovations that occurred and challenges that Regional planning institutions are facing. Just after the devolution of local power in Italy in 1977, spatial planning competences began being organized into Regional Institutions. Each of the twenty new Regions must make a Territorial Regional Plan (Piano territoriale regionale) together with a Regional Landscape Plan (Piano paesaggistico), possibly in connection with a Development Regional Program (Programma regionale di sviluppo). The paper addresses these innovations.

The urban strategic planning in the peripherical regions: the case of Catania (Sicily)

2002

More and more regional development appears as an effect of the role that cities are able to carry out in the territory. This implies reconsidering not only resources which are available to a city but, above all, its ability to organize urban activities and functions. If these considerations have already found careful appraisal in the most developed regions, by means of the renewal of instruments for the strategic planning of cities, it seems still insufficient the use of these new planning instruments in the less developed regions, although their primary role in the processes of local development. In Southern Italy, for instance, the proliferation of financial support from various sources (E.U., National Government and Regional ones), which imposes plans at different scales (the interregional one, the among cities one and the among suburbs one), and the emergence of actors and stakeholders, also within the presence of public order problems and infrastructural deficiencies, constitut...

Region – Province – Municipality. Spatial Planning and Spatial Policy in Italy, 1860-2016

Historical Social Research - Historische Sozialforschung, 2017

This article explores the history of regions, centralism and regionalism in Italya highly controversial political field of state reorganization over 150 years. Focusing on the status of regions within Italy's political power structure and the development of the multi-level governance system, the article draws a line from the foundation of the Italian national state in 1860/61 to the immediate present. It examines political aspirations for decentralized structures and changing perceptions of how to reorganize the state to create efficient structures in different eras as well as power shifts between the different political levels. The article shows that Italian politics oscillated between centralism and regionalism. Reforms took place against the backdrop of different political systems and public debates in a heterogonous country. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Italian public discussed a federal structure and decentralization. Altogether, reforms were implemented inconsistently, slowly and gradually: The long-term analysis highlights the complexity of constitutional reforms within the background of a set of actor's including regionalist movements, political parties and traditionalist and regionalist sentiments. What we observe is a highly ideological debate on decentralization followed by reservations and resistances across the state. The article concludes that looking at today's Italian politics, attempts for recentralization are gaining ground again. However, the article identifies several dimensions of state transformation. Notions of efficiency and legitimacy have to be taken in account just as much as regional self-interests, diverse structures inherited from the past and the asymmetry of the Italian federalist system. The author stresses the need for a more holistic approach, for a detailed examination of the relationship between those dimensions together with a shift in global power structures. The contribution thus proceeds to develop a multifaceted framework in order to facilitate further research, to understand more fully the shift of power within the Italian multi-level system.

Vintage Urban Planning in Italy: Land Management with the Tools of the Mid-Twentieth Century.

Sustainability, 2018

This paper describes a critical situation for Italy, which is one of the causes of the overall disorganization of settlement growth in the past decades. Using the data extracted from some institutional databases, we show that a large part of the national territory is managed with highly effective decision-making tools (such as municipal town planning schemes in Italy), which are, however, lagging behind in their conception and fulfilment of scientific, cultural, and political requirements deemed essential today for effective and sustainable land transformation. Municipalities with plans dating back to a quarter of a century ago, or without any plans, are 1445 in number (17% of the total) and involve 6,200,000 ha of territory (1/5 of Italy) with almost 10 million residents. The territorial changes in these geographical areas, mainly concentrated in the south, are managed with tools based on mid-20th century concepts and techniques, although a large proportion of these territories are demographically active and transform substantial portions of land. Thus, for at least 15–20 years, these territories underwent transformations disconnected from town plans and driven essentially by one-off measures or managed through numerous exceptional and negotiated procedures provided for by national legislation. Today, it seems necessary for southern Italy to overcome its extensive delay in territorial planning, and the drive can only come from national government. This would help it finally respond to current environmental sustainability, risk resilience, and territorial security requirements, through appropriate and technically advanced management procedures not envisaged in previous planning procedures

Multiple evaluation of urban and peri-urban agriculture and its relation to spatial planning: The case of Prato territory (Italy)

Sustainable Cities and Society, 2021

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPUA) Ecosystem services (ES) Agro-urban food production Urban/rural re-embedding Agroecological patterns Integrated spatial planning A B S T R A C T Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPUA) can play a fundamental role in producing Ecosystem Services (ES) ES at the local level improving sustainability of urban / rural relations. Referring to the peri-urban areas surrounding Municipality of Prato (Tuscany-Italy), we assessed the potential of urban and peri-urban agricultural areas in providing some key ES: food supply, CO 2 storage and biodiversity / connectivity. We also analysed the planning tools operating in the area to foster the enhancement of the UPUA area within the planning processes. The study was conducted using the scenario method by comparing the current situation with an agroecological scenario and verifying the change in the delivery of these three ES. The results show an increase of CO 2 storage capacity and ecological connectivity with tolerable repercussions on food provision. Indeed, results highlights the potential of the UPUA in satisfying the food needs of almost 87.9% of the inhabitants of Prato for cereals and 27.9% for legumes whereas, in the agroecological scenario, these produce decrease by about 23% and 11%. Finally, the study suggests the need to integrate governance and territorial planning tools to promote and enhance the role of ES provided by UPUAs on an urban and peri-urban scale.

Institutional Methods for the Identification of Urban and Rural Areas—A Review for Italy

Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions

Recent economic, demographic, and spatial changes have profoundly modified urban and rural areas and generated new territories, characterized by varying degrees of urbanity. The classification methods traditionally used to identify them are based on the distinction between urban and non-urban areas and are no longer functional to describe the territorial outcomes of these transformations. New methods have therefore been formulated and implemented in recent years to replace them. EUROSTAT has developed and updated periodically its own methods, intended to methodologically support scholars to read territorial diversities and transformations. Being the basis for the production of official statistics and data comparison between regions, these methods have fully replaced all the other methods that singular statistical offices of European countries had previously developed. Several government institutions began adopting specific territorial classifications in their strategic planning doc...

The dichotomy between city and countryside in the Italian experience of regional landscape planning

2020

Cities represent public places where urban planning rules meet urban policies in order to build conditions of pluralism that characterize the difficult relationship between man and city. Urban space has always been the existing link between place and use, where the meaning of the project and form affect the community and the identifying sharing of practices and operational views. (Pasqui G., 2018) This contribution aims at investigating the urban tensions placed within the space of the metropolitan dimension of the city and on the matrix nature of the countryside in proximity, by understanding the exchanges, interpretations and cultural reflections that raise the issue of the urban limit on spatial regulation under the scrutiny of the regional territorial planning processes. The task of urban planning as a field of practice recognizes the organization at different levels in technical, administrative and political activities and the capacity to restore rules and new sustainable appro...