L'articolo intende discutere con un taglio critico le modalità con cui il dibattito scientifico, la politica regionale e le azioni che da questa derivano stanno affrontando i cambiamenti radicali che contrassegnano il rapporto tra le 'regioni politiche' e il potere statuale, sullo sfondo di una situazione internazionale caratterizzata dall'irrompere del cosiddetto discorso 'sovranista'. Quest'ultimo sembra aver ridimensionato l'afflato regionalista che aveva connotato l'ultimo decennio del Novecento, in particolare nei paesi membri dell'Unione Europea, e riportato in auge la sovranità statuale come asse di riferimento della vita delle comunità politiche nazionali. In realtà, il regionalismo non appare in ritirata, ma ha semmai preso strade diverse rispetto al rafforzamento legislativo impresso con le riforme degli anni Novanta, privilegiando una dimensione urbano-regionale che sembra interpretare meglio dei tradizionali contenitori regionali il ruolo di 'soggetto attivo' delle dinamiche spaziali e dei nuovi equilibri territoriali. Contro la convenzionale dicotomia che vede contrapposti Stato e regioni, sulla scorta di recenti evoluzioni del quadro teorico-analitico internazionale l'articolo propone quindi di osservare questi attori come elementi co-costitutivi di una arena decisionale di natura transcalare e post-nazionale più adatta alle dinamiche spaziali contemporanee e alle relative strategie di controllo da parte delle istituzioni pubbliche e delle organizzazioni socio-economiche. Si tratta di una lettura delle relazioni tra Stato e regioni – e tra politiche nazionali e politiche regionali – che è del tutto assente nel dibattito italiano, attardato nelle tradizionali diatribe su centralismo/ federalismo e nazionale/locale.
The 'development paradigm' has recently registered strong conceptual changes. Its definition has contemporaneously succeeded both in the field of public discourses and in that of operational practices, notably in the local 'dimension'. A revival of the regional economies and societies lays behind these changes of the conceptual framework, searching for an operational and decisional autonomy, so that the regions appear like 'policy actors' and not just like 'policy spaces' by now. The paper aims at investigating the tension between these two aspects, paying attention to the rise of new forms of 'transcalar' territorial policy. The reflection on this topic can be stimulating not only from a theoretical point of view, but also in the view of the foreseen reform of European Union's regional policies and of the need for a place-based economic policy, reasserted by many scholars and practitioners.
The paper is organised as follows: after this Introduction, in Section 2, we reconstruct the theoretical debate on the function of knowledge and creativity in places. Section 3 attempts to depict the role of cultural institutions within the theoretical model of territorial local systems, clarifying ways in which we can fruitfully combine such concepts as «culture» and «creativity» with the geographical perspective, paying attention to the territories' capability of behaving as collective actors. This section, along with Section 4, describes the mechanisms of the «knowledge circuit» as factors of urban and regional development, and provides an interpretative scheme for the analysis of the case-studies of Biella (Italy) and Saint-Etienne (France).
Over the two last decades, the regional policies have increasingly met the need to foster the economic competitiveness of regional and local economies, in order to face globalisation challenges. However, these actions have privileged the direct competition, oriented to catch investment and consumption flows by improving the regional/local attractiveness, than the indirect one, which is based on the social and institutional interplay involving the regional/local actors. The increasing relevance of the indirect competition brings back on stage the public sector, namely the various levels of territorial government. Yet, the most successful experiences in Europe demonstrate that this renaissance of the public guide in spatial policies is intimately linked to the involvement of local systems of actors and implies a 'constructed' idea of territory. This paper seeks to enlighten some features of this process, introducing the concept of multilevel governance and place-based policies as the basic building blocks of the regional policies.
Le paysage régional italien est connu pour être l'un des plus différenciés d'Europe. Il a été à l'origine d'une régionalisation progressive depuis la naissance de la République en 1946. Cet article synthétise les différentes étapes de la mise en place des régions italiennes depuis l'unification nationale en 1861, souligne la nature artificielle de la subdivision régionale tout en montrant l'importance croissante des institutions régionales dans la structure gouvernementale du pays. Le processus de régionalisation a connu la vague néo-régionaliste des années 1990 qui a créé un mécanisme complexe et, sur certains aspects, inefficace, de distribution du pouvoir. L'impact des réformes constitutionnelles relativement récentes (2011) et de l'échec de la recentralisation portée par la dernière proposition de réforme (2016) sur les relations entre l'État et les régions est analysé.
The paper aims at discussing from a critical perspective the state of art of territorial policies on the national scale, through the political geography approach, interested in the restructuring processes of the role of the State and regional governments, and using the key of de-territorialisation/territorialisation effects of physical infrastructures. The last decades are thus analyzed as a set of missed opportunities for the Italian territorial development, where the central government's approach has essentially been led by engineering and economical logics, with no ability to take into account the territorial implications of technical choices. The history of spatial planning at national level has proved, in short, a history of broken promises: in spite of exceptional richness and variety of armor urban settlement and regional frameworks of regional economic structures, public action to conduct central level have rarely crossed the issues of territorial expansion and enhancement, and when that occurred, as the experience of Project 80 and in that, therein, regional strategic platforms at MIT initiatives have been undertaken without any real ability to affect the sore spots of our land imbalances in allocation of resources between North and South of the country, "poverty" of equipment of Italian cities, land use and landscape resources increasing over the decades. While Europe is trying - with difficulty - to respond with crosssectoral programming to complex problems, in Italy seem to prevail industry solutions and dominated by a logic "economist" and not territorialized, which actually eludes concrete points raised by the financial crisis and budgetary constraints. This is even more true if you intentionally look through the lens of the geographic infrastructure initiatives undertaken by the central government, after an intense phase of concentration of financial resources in the frame construction of infrastructural base of the peninsula, the issue has undergone variations only technological and economic no capacity for reflection on the relevant territorial implications of the choices made. While in other European countries, the integration between infrastructure development and regional development was seriously taken into care, emphasizing the aspects of "territorial project" - the French experience is, as always, eloquent in this respect - in the last fifteen years, the territorial aspect choices of infrastructure has been sacrificed on the altar of rationality engineering and financial calculations. Far from asserting that these issues are minor, we believe that the dynamics of de-territorialization and selective territorialization generated by the various infrastructure options that require attention, until now, is completely lacking.
The paper aims at discussing from a critical perspective the state of art of territorial policies on the national scale, through the political geography approach, interested in the restructuring processes of the role of the State and regional governments, and using the key of de-territorialisation/territorialisation effects of physical infrastructures.The last decades are thus analyzed as a set of missed opportunities for the Italian territorial development, where the central government's approach has essentially been led by engineering and economical logics, with no ability to take into account the territorial implications of technical choices.The history of spatial planning at national level has proved, in short, a history of broken promises: in spite of exceptional richness and variety of armor urban settlement and regional frameworks of regional economic structures, public action to conduct central level have rarely crossed the issues of territorial expansion and enhancement, and when that occurred, as the experience of Project 80 and in that, therein, regional strategic platforms at MIT initiatives have been undertaken without any real ability to affect the sore spots of our land imbalances in allocation of resources between North and South of the country, "poverty" of equipment of Italian cities, land use and landscape resources increasing over the decades.While Europe is trying - with difficulty - to respond with crosssectoral programming to complex problems, in Italy seem to prevail industry solutions and dominated by a logic "economist" and not territorialized, which actually eludes concrete points raised by the financial crisis and budgetary constraints.This is even more true if you intentionally look through the lens of the geographic infrastructure initiatives undertaken by the central government, after an intense phase of concentration of financial resources in the frame construction of infrastructural base of the peninsula, the issue has undergone variations only technological and economic no capacity for reflection on the relevant territorial implications of the choices made. While in other European countries, the integration between infrastructure development and regional development was seriously taken into care, emphasizing the aspects of "territorial project" - the French experience is, as always, eloquent in this respect - in the last fifteen years, the territorial aspect choices of infrastructure has been sacrificed on the altar of rationality engineering and financial calculations. Far from asserting that these issues are minor, we believe that the dynamics of de-territorialization and selective territorialization generated by the various infrastructure options that require attention, until now, is completely lacking. ; The paper aims at discussing from a critical perspective the state of art of territorial policies on the national scale, through the political geography approach, interested in the restructuring processes of the role of the State and regional governments, and using the key of de-territorialisation/territorialisation effects of physical infrastructures.The last decades are thus analyzed as a set of missed opportunities for the Italian territorial development, where the central government's approach has essentially been led by engineering and economical logics, with no ability to take into account the territorial implications of technical choices.The history of spatial planning at national level has proved, in short, a history of broken promises: in spite of exceptional richness and variety of armor urban settlement and regional frameworks of regional economic structures, public action to conduct central level have rarely crossed the issues of territorial expansion and enhancement, and when that occurred, as the experience of Project 80 and in that, therein, regional strategic platforms at MIT initiatives have been undertaken without any real ability to affect the sore spots of our land imbalances in allocation of resources between North and South of the country, "poverty" of equipment of Italian cities, land use and landscape resources increasing over the decades.While Europe is trying - with difficulty - to respond with crosssectoral programming to complex problems, in Italy seem to prevail industry solutions and dominated by a logic "economist" and not territorialized, which actually eludes concrete points raised by the financial crisis and budgetary constraints.This is even more true if you intentionally look through the lens of the geographic infrastructure initiatives undertaken by the central government, after an intense phase of concentration of financial resources in the frame construction of infrastructural base of the peninsula, the issue has undergone variations only technological and economic no capacity for reflection on the relevant territorial implications of the choices made. While in other European countries, the integration between infrastructure development and regional development was seriously taken into care, emphasizing the aspects of "territorial project" - the French experience is, as always, eloquent in this respect - in the last fifteen years, the territorial aspect choices of infrastructure has been sacrificed on the altar of rationality engineering and financial calculations. Far from asserting that these issues are minor, we believe that the dynamics of de-territorialization and selective territorialization generated by the various infrastructure options that require attention, until now, is completely lacking.
The paper aims at discussing from a critical perspective the state of art of territorial policies on the national scale, through the political geography approach, interested in the restructuring processes of the role of the State and regional governments, and using the key of de-territorialisation/territorialisation effects of physical infrastructures.The last decades are thus analyzed as a set of missed opportunities for the Italian territorial development, where the central government's approach has essentially been led by engineering and economical logics, with no ability to take into account the territorial implications of technical choices.The history of spatial planning at national level has proved, in short, a history of broken promises: in spite of exceptional richness and variety of armor urban settlement and regional frameworks of regional economic structures, public action to conduct central level have rarely crossed the issues of territorial expansion and enhancement, and when that occurred, as the experience of Project 80 and in that, therein, regional strategic platforms at MIT initiatives have been undertaken without any real ability to affect the sore spots of our land imbalances in allocation of resources between North and South of the country, "poverty" of equipment of Italian cities, land use and landscape resources increasing over the decades.While Europe is trying - with difficulty - to respond with crosssectoral programming to complex problems, in Italy seem to prevail industry solutions and dominated by a logic "economist" and not territorialized, which actually eludes concrete points raised by the financial crisis and budgetary constraints.This is even more true if you intentionally look through the lens of the geographic infrastructure initiatives undertaken by the central government, after an intense phase of concentration of financial resources in the frame construction of infrastructural base of the peninsula, the issue has undergone variations only technological and economic no capacity for reflection on the relevant territorial implications of the choices made. While in other European countries, the integration between infrastructure development and regional development was seriously taken into care, emphasizing the aspects of "territorial project" - the French experience is, as always, eloquent in this respect - in the last fifteen years, the territorial aspect choices of infrastructure has been sacrificed on the altar of rationality engineering and financial calculations. Far from asserting that these issues are minor, we believe that the dynamics of de-territorialization and selective territorialization generated by the various infrastructure options that require attention, until now, is completely lacking. ; The paper aims at discussing from a critical perspective the state of art of territorial policies on the national scale, through the political geography approach, interested in the restructuring processes of the role of the State and regional governments, and using the key of de-territorialisation/territorialisation effects of physical infrastructures.The last decades are thus analyzed as a set of missed opportunities for the Italian territorial development, where the central government's approach has essentially been led by engineering and economical logics, with no ability to take into account the territorial implications of technical choices.The history of spatial planning at national level has proved, in short, a history of broken promises: in spite of exceptional richness and variety of armor urban settlement and regional frameworks of regional economic structures, public action to conduct central level have rarely crossed the issues of territorial expansion and enhancement, and when that occurred, as the experience of Project 80 and in that, therein, regional strategic platforms at MIT initiatives have been undertaken without any real ability to affect the sore spots of our land imbalances in allocation of resources between North and South of the country, "poverty" of equipment of Italian cities, land use and landscape resources increasing over the decades.While Europe is trying - with difficulty - to respond with crosssectoral programming to complex problems, in Italy seem to prevail industry solutions and dominated by a logic "economist" and not territorialized, which actually eludes concrete points raised by the financial crisis and budgetary constraints.This is even more true if you intentionally look through the lens of the geographic infrastructure initiatives undertaken by the central government, after an intense phase of concentration of financial resources in the frame construction of infrastructural base of the peninsula, the issue has undergone variations only technological and economic no capacity for reflection on the relevant territorial implications of the choices made. While in other European countries, the integration between infrastructure development and regional development was seriously taken into care, emphasizing the aspects of "territorial project" - the French experience is, as always, eloquent in this respect - in the last fifteen years, the territorial aspect choices of infrastructure has been sacrificed on the altar of rationality engineering and financial calculations. Far from asserting that these issues are minor, we believe that the dynamics of de-territorialization and selective territorialization generated by the various infrastructure options that require attention, until now, is completely lacking.
La estructura de las relaciones que se dan entre las empresas y los territorios en las que éstas operan, está cada vez más condicionada por la combinación de lógicas y estrategias competitivas desplegadas a escala global y por factores contextuales de conveniencia localizativa. En el texto se presentan y se discuten los resultados de una investigación empírica realizada sobre el sistema de operadores económicos en la región metropolitana de Milán; es un intento de cuestionar las categorías analíticas utilizadas tradicionalmente en los estudios de localización geográfica de las actividades económicas, a la vez que se pretende valorar la viabilidad de las políticas de promoción del desarrollo local inspiradas en el marketing territorial. ; L'estructura de les relacions existents entre les empreses i els territoris en les que aquestes operen, es veu cada vegada més condicionada per la combinació de lògiques i estratègies competitives desplegades a escala global i per factors contextuals de conveniència localitzativa. En el text es presenten i discuteixen els resultats d'una recerca empírica realitzada sobre el sistema d'operadors econòmics a la regió metropolitana de Milà; és un intent de qüestionar les categories analítiques utilitzades tradicionalment en els estudis de localització geogràfica de les activitats econòmiques alhora que es pretén valorar la viabilitat de les polítiques de promoció del desenvolupament local inspirades en el màrqueting territorial. ; La combinaison des logiques et des stratégies compétitives à l'échelle mondiales, et les facteurs contextuels d'une convenance de localisation conditionnent, de plus en plus, les rapports entre les entreprises et les territoires où celles-ci agissent. Dans le texte, on discute des résultats fournis par une recherche empirique qui tourne autour du système d'opérateurs économiques de la région métropolitaine de Milan; on remet en question les catégories analytiques utilices traditionnellement dans les études de localisation géographique des activités économiques, en même temps qu'on essai d'évaluer la viabilité des politiques de promotion du développement local qui s'inspirent du marketing territorial. ; The structure of relations that is established between companies and the territories in which they operate is conditioned more and more by the mixture of competitive logic and strategies at a global level, and by contextual factors of localizative convenience. This article presents the results of an empirical study that analyses the system of economic operators in the metropolitan region of Milan. It questions the analytical categories used traditionally in the studies of geographical localization of economic activities, and attempts to evaluate the viability of local development promotion policies inspired by local marketing.
The North without a compass: spatial dynamics and territorial strategies to a hundred and fifty years from the unification of italyThe paper examines the rise of a 'North' region within the contemporaryItaly in the light of the 'crisis' of nation-statehood experiencedthroughout Europe during the last decades. Although the idea of astate demise is questionable and, rather, definitively ascribed to the rise of apost-national state, the magmatic condition of the Italian regional entities ischallenging the old state edifice emerged from the Post-War ConstitutionalAssembly.This 'North' region is investigated according to a manifold point of view:that of a very mosaic of many local systems strongly differing from eachother – metropolitan areas, industrial districts, networks of medium-sizedcities; that of a social construct which exists under specific conditions andfor specific actors, who can change their scalar references; and finally thatof a political mobilisation on the base of a mix of economic and cultural elements, analysed through the lenses of the New Regionalism approach.The main aim of the paper is to deconstruct the rhetoric of 'North',practised by political actors and movements but quickly spread to the publicdebate, affecting the imaginary of Italians. We do not deny the reality ofthe social and economic differences featuring the 'North' as a whole incomparison to the other parts of the Italian territory, but, at the same time,we argue the existence of deep contrasts within the supposed unitary'North'.KeywordsRegionalism, local systems, North.Le Nord sans boussole: evolutions spatiales et stratégies territoriales à cent cinquante ans de l'UnitéL'article analyse l'essor d'une région «Nord» à l'intérieur de l'Italiecontemporaine, à la lumière de la «crise» de l'Etat-nation expérimentéeen Europe pendant les dernières décennies. Même si l'idée d'un abandon du camp par l'Etat est questionnable et imputable, plutôt, à la naissance d'un Etat post-national, l'activisme des gouvernements régionaux italiens est en train de challenger l'ancienne architecture institutionnelle conçue par l'Assemblée constitutionnelle après le Fascisme.Cette région «Nord» est investiguée selon des différents points de vue:celui d'un véritable mosaïque de plusieurs systèmes locaux qui diffèrent l'unde l'autre – agglomérations métropolitaines, districts industriels, réseaux devilles petites et moyennes; celui d'un construit social qui existe sous desconditions et pour des acteurs particuliers, qui peuvent changer leur référencesd'échelle; et, finalement, celui d'une mobilisation politique sur labase d'un ensemble d'éléments économiques et culturels, analysés à traversles lentilles du Nouveau Régionalisme. Le but principal de cet article est celui de déconstruire la rhétorique du «Nord» telle que pratiquée par les acteurs et les mouvements politiques mais diffusée très vite dans le débat publique, affectant l'imaginaire actuel des Italiens. On ne dénie pas la réalité des différences sociales et économiques qui caractérisent le «Nord» comme une entité unique par rapport aux autres composantes du territoire italien, mais, en même temps, on soutient l'existence de contrastes profonds à l'intérieur d'un «Nord» supposé comme unitaire.Mots-clésRegionalism, systems locaux, Nord.
Current changes in territorial organization are interpreted by focusing on two main aspects that are different yet closely interrelated. The first aspect concerns relationships between unfolding processes of territorial redefinition and changes imposed by globalization processes and by European integration, and by the loss of centrality and of part of the power of nation‐state government. The second aspect concerns the change in forms and procedures of collective action in urban and territorial policies, recognizing, in particular, the consolidation — including in practices — of forms of partnership, inter‐institutional cooperation, strategic planning and governance. Within this general context, this article aims to present and discuss changes, both ongoing and recent, by (1) presenting the changes that are emerging in the framework of Italian urban and territorial policies; and (2) discussing critically, with reference to the Italian case, the relationship between change in the idea of local territories and change in urban and territorial policies. Our aim is to verify whether, within what limits and from what point of view, the innovations introduced in the Italian context may be interpreted as changes that are moving towards more place‐focused forms of urban and territorial governance.On interprète les évolutions actuelles de l'organisation territoriale à travers deux aspects dominants, différents quoique étroitement liés. Le premier concerne les relations entre les processus d'explication de la redéfinition territoriale et les changements imposés par les processus de mondialisation et l'intégration européenne, et par la disparition de la centralité et d'une partie de la puissance gouvernementale de l'Énation. Le second porte sur la transformation des formes et procédures d'action collective dans les politiques publiques urbaines et territoriales, celles‐ci reconnaissant notamment la fusion — y compris dans les pratiques — de formes de partenariat, coopération inter‐institutions, planification stratégique et gouvernance. Dans ce contexte général, l'article cherche à exposer et étudier les évolutions actuelles et récentes, d'une part en présentant les changements qui apparaissent dans le cadre des politiques urbaines et territoriales italiennes, d'autre part en abordant de façon critique, par rapport au cas italien, le lien entre un changement d'idée sur les territoires locaux et une transformation des politiques urbaines et territoriales. Il s'agit de vérifier si les innovations introduites dans le contexte italien peuvent s'interpréter comme des changements tendant à des formes de gouvernance urbaine et territoriale plus soucieuses des lieux, et ce dans quelle mesure et de quel point de vue.
