Da area a città metropolitana: una possibile rinascita per l’Italia?
Gabriella Corona e Antonio di Gennaro
From Urban Area to Metropolitan Authority:
A Possible Renaissance for italy
The authors introduce the essays included in this issue of «Meridiana» whose aim
is to give a contribution to the collective reflexion about the «Delrio law» approved in
April 2014 which has instituted fourteen Metropolitan Authorities in Italy. The articles
describe the transformations which have interested four important metropolitan areas –
Milano, Firenze, Roma and Napoli – during the last three decades and their social and
environmental implications. They also define the interventions that the new institution
must realise. In spite of the limits of the «Delrio law» the Metropolitan Authorities
could yet represent a national political project direct to overtake those divisions and
conflicts between different parts of Italy beginning from local level. For reaching this
result it’s important to give a democratic character to the government of Metropolitan
Authorities and promote a larger city’s bottom up policies..
Keywords: urban transformations, Italian renaissance, urban areas, unification local
governments
Cambiamenti in atto nelle città metropolitane del nostro Paese
Silvio Casucci e Alessandro Leon
Urban Transformation in the Largest Italian Metropolitan Areas
The article is focus on the urban transformation of the 10 largest metropolitan areas
in Italy in the last 10 years, based on the 2011 data Census processed by Istat, the Italian
National Institute of Statistics. A comprehensive statistical data analysis is provided and
benchmarks are proposed between the city centers and the surroundings in terms of the
evolution of the population, the households, the social distress, and the employment.
The main result is that the social and physical transformations were huge: the population
increased for the first time after 20 years stagnation mainly caused by the legal and
illegal immigration, the number of households increased either for the numerous one
man/one family immigrated people, or for the evolutionary social change of the Italian
family institution, the increase in the number of houses located far away the city centers
with poor transportation facilities, lack of local public and private services. The lack of
public finance caused by the European Treaty gave rise to a pro-market local policy approaches that failed to coordinate houses locations, jobs, and public and private services,
with huge indirect and external social costs in term of mobility excesses, pollution, and
social distress.
Keywords: Urban economics, population and households, urban metropolitan area
Milano città metropolitana fra deregolazione e nuova progettualità
Maria Cristina Gibelli
Milan Metropolitan Government Between
Deregulation and Renewed Strategies
For two decades the urban region of Milan has been losing ground in the European
urban hierarchy. How could the new metropolitan government about to be established
re-interpret the recently approved national law (no. 56/2014), though inadequate and
potentially harmful, in a desirable way? In order to answer this question the paper is
organized in two main parts. The first part highlights the present weaknesses of the
Milanese urban region: in particular its steady loss of competitiveness, mainly due to deregulation
of planning and privatization of urban policies. Consequently, the Milan area
has been unable to counter the assaults of real estate speculation and of mafia infiltration,
and it has been burdened by worsening environmental quality and livability. The second
part puts forward some critical remarks on Law 56/2014, especially in comparison
with other European contexts. In particular, the new law on metropolitan governments
recently enacted in France is analyzed. An exercise is proposed concerning the issues,
the challenges, and the tools that the Milanese Statute could take into consideration in
a desirable scenario. The conclusions are not optimistic, given the weak commitment
manifested by the mayor of Milan and the ‘business as usual’ approach privileged in the
recently adopted municipal master plan.
Keywords: Milan metropolitan government, metro governments in Europe, deregulation
in planning metropolitan statute
Firenze in cerca di un rimedio alla caotica costruzione urbana
Mauro Baioni
Florence Metropolitan Area Looking for a Remedy
to the Chaotic Urban Growth
The metropolitan area of Florence is, nowadays, at a turning point. The economic
crisis makes less tolerable the negative aspects of the governance model and the demand
for a radical change of territorial policies is increasing day by day. However, the debate
about the new government level established by law (metropolitan city) is not focused
on a wide-ranging proposals overall the whole metropolitan area, as it was twenty years
ago. In 1990 the Region Tuscany approved - for the first and only time - a comprehensive
program for the metropolitan area (Structural scheme Florence -Prato-Pistoia). The
schema was based on a wide comprehensive strategy. It focused the attention on the
re-organization and rehabilitation of urban areas, containing the chaotic urban growth.
Its implementation was mainly based on the cooperation between the Region and local
municipalities. To better understand the issues and challenges we are facing now, it is
useful to recall the critical aspects of the plan and the limits of its implementation model,
during the following years.
Keywords: Urban planning, governance, metropolitan area, Florence, Tuscany
Roma, una città metropolitana in crescita e trasformazione
Carlo Carminucci, Silvio Casucci e Georg Frisch
Rome, a Growing Metropolitan City in Transformation
Rome is the Italian urban metropolitan area which has undergone in the last ten/
fifteen years the most profound changes both in terms of economic and social development
and in terms of urban planning and mobility. This article aims to contribute to
the recent debate on the city of Rome, through an objective analysis on the positive and
negative changes that have marked the city’s recent history. We want to support the thesis
that the institution of the metropolitan city of Rome risks arriving ten/fifteen years
late. The profound changes ongoing in the city would undoubtedly have required an
effective territorial government and a vast area leadership capability, which has proven
to be inadequate. The absence of such a capability has, inevitably, brought about strong
imbalances and significant new problems which cannot be easily fixed in the near future.
Keywords: Rome, urban economics, urban metropolitan area, urban mobility
Per una storia dell’ecosistema metropolitano di Napoli
Antonio di Gennaro
For a History of the Metropolitan Ecosystem of Naples
Antonio di Gennaro outlines the history of metropolitan area of Naples from an
ecosystem point of view. During the sixties years it presented yet an ancient configuration
regarding the relationship between rural and urban spaces. During last five decades
the area has had a radical transformation from a polycentric system to a metropolitan
conurbation. It was a change which has produced three serious effects: soils destruction,
urban area expansion and occupation of areas with high environmental sensibility.
Keywords: Ecosystem, metropolitan area of Naples, consuption of soil, green belt
La città metropolitana di Napoli. Poteva essere un’occasione di riscatto
Vezio De Lucia
The Metropolitan Authority of Neaples.
It Could Have Been an Opportunity of Redemption
Statistical data demonstrate that the quality of life within the metropolitan area of
Naples is in a terrible condition and it has gone worst in the last decades. 2. The article
focuses on the situation of the coastline of the Vesuvius, where in many municipalities
buildings have consumed the available space; a situation that is alarming in consideration
of the volcanic risk of the Vesuvius itself. 3. Congestion, overcrowding and administrative
fragmentation would require a forward-looking and effective instruments
of land use planning, that should be based on a large scale dimension. 4. A satisfactory
legal discipline was introduced by the law n. 142 of 1990 that provided for metropolitan
authorities with functions appropriate to the problems. 5. On the contrary the recently
approved reform of the metropolitan authorities (law 7 April 2014, n. 56) seems to be
completely inadequate. 6. The article propose then the subject of the protection and
the promotion of cultural heritage as keystone of every perspective of rebirth. 7. In the
conclusion, the article underlines a positive note, that is the progress in the construction
of the metro of Naples (Scampia is now reachable from the main station in half hour).
Keywords: Metropolitan authorities, Neaples, cultural heritage, quality of life
Governo metropolitano e politiche per il territorio: il caso di Barcellona
Angelino Mazza
Metropolitan Government and Planning Policies:
The Case of Barcellona
The metropolitan region of Barcelona is one of the functional ambits which have
been defined by the General Territorial Plan of Catalunya and it covers 10% of the
whole Catalan territory. The approval of the correspondent plan (PTMB) has been a
very meaningful moment towards the evolution of the metropolitan territory, by marking
the starting point of a new phase, in which territorial balance proposals have become
a permanent point of reference for the evaluation of transformation processes within the
entire region. PTMB has introduced an innovative methodology which bases on a precise
process of inter-territorial participation and sharing, outcome of a marked peculiarity
of the territory. The relevant elements for the analysis of the used method are three:
the facilities system, open spaces network and growth dynamics of rural areas. This has
outlined a strategy which is innovative in comparison to the regional environment, the
latter has indeed become a second-level one with reference to the method. The critical
analysis of the challenges described by the text must also represent a fervid field of
work in the new today’s political and economic situation in our Country with reference
both to the redefinition processes of the organizational and administrative forms of the
territories with infra-regional scale (the Provinces), and to system of processing of vast
area in function of the utility of scale of reference (Provincial or Regional one) and how
the latter can provide a contribution for the functional reorganization of the territories.
Keywords: Urban region, metropolitan sprawl, government, system of cities
Profili istituzionali del dibattito sulla città metropolitana
Gennaro Macri
Institutional outlines of the discussion about metropolitan authority
The article examines the institutional profiles of the debate concerning metropolitan
authority, starting from the analysis of some relevant European experiences. The
example of London shows the performance of a model which is based on the direct
election and on the attribution of the most relevant functions to the mayor within a
framework connoted by a strict control of the assembly and the citizens. The cases
of Barcelona and Paris, which don’t allow the direct election to the organs, show the
importance of a construction of the model from the bottom and the utility of a process
in which associations, citizens and preexisting local bodies participate. In Italy,
the process passed through several never-effected laws now finds a first realization
achievement with the «Delrio law», which establishes the constitution starting on 1
January 2015 of a metropolitan authority for each the main urban area of the State.
The selected model doesn’t admit direct election to the organs and fixes number, size
and functions of the metropolitan authorities according to a uniform pattern imposed
on every affected community. In this way, it combines the faults of a choice from the
top with the ones of a non-representative system. The hope is that the process already
began can obtain more successful and more democratic results in the future, borrowing
the best from the experiences of other countries.
Keywords: metropolitan authority, election, functions, institutional models
Dentro la città. Forum con Luciano Brancaccio, Nick Dines, Jason Pine e Marcello Ravveduto
Luciano Brancaccio, Nick Dines, Jason Pine e Marcello Ravveduto
Inside the City
Drawing on over ten years of ethnographic research on the neomelodica music scene
in Campania, The Art of Making Do in Naples (University of Minnesota Press 2012)
offers several empirical, theoretical and methodological points of interest for scholars
working in a range of social science disciplines. For this reason, Meridiana hosted a forum
on the book comprised of scholars from variety of backgrounds (history, sociology
and anthropology). Pine’s work is the first to explore, through in depth long-term field
research, the social spaces where formal, informal and illicit economic activities overlap.
In their discussion, the participants of the forum engaged a number of issues relevant to
readers of Meridiana, including: Pine’s concept of the «contact zone,» stereotypical representations
of the neomelodica scene and of Neapolitan popular classes more generally,
the power and form of camorra networks, the fraught relationship between researcher
and the field, and the spaces of indeterminacy that comprise the topography of social
research. Pine’s book and, in part, the forum discussion, argue for the need to question
the interpretive and ethical certainties of «common sense» and/or theory, treat the field
instead as a space of immanent knowledge to be considered situationally and concretely.
Keywords: Neomelodica music scene, popular classes, organized crime, contact zone
La Terra dei fuochi. Un problema di rappresentanza?
Marco Demarco
The «Terra dei fuochi».
A Rappresentative Question?
The experience of the «Terra dei fuochi» movements as a possible answer to the
question: who and how takes the unpopular decisions about landfills, incinerators, industrial
plants that treat waste. The analysis starts, not surprisingly, by the book Breaking
the impasse: consensual approaches to resoliving public disputes (Basic books, 1987)
written by Jeffrey Cruiksshank and Lawrence Susskind. In the Land of fires, where an
«ecomafia» responsible for illegal dumping that has caused a rise in cancer rates, a central
role is played by Father Maurizio Patriciello. He is a charismatic leader, who recalls the
figure of Erin Brockovich in the Steven Soderbergh’s movie. Hinkley, California, where
the movie is set, as Caivano, South Italy, where Patriciello lives. He leads the protest using
tradition and modernity, the parish, where he meets his people, and social networks.
In this mix of old and new is the secret of his success. The first waste crisis in Naples was
in 1994. After twenty years of environmental emergency, only now here there are the
first measures against the toxic waste.
Keywords: Terra dei fuochi, local community, toxic waste, ecomafia