Organisation
Several initiatives have been adopted since then, always balancing top-down and bottom-up approaches. PRU and PRUSST, for example, were launched by the Ministry through a tendering procedure aimed at offering assistance in a local development plan. Scores were linked to several indicators containing and representing the central government’s strategic vision, while on the other hand programmes were proposed by municipalities elaborating their own needs and potentials. PRU and PRUSST synthesise the necessarily general national representation with the specificity of the local vision.

As a result the collection of the local proposals produced excellent territorial information, thus enabling another type of ‘coordination’; it was in fact possible to collect and reorganise data and proposals and to set up new categories for further national policies and new initiatives. The national policies can in turn be the objectives to distribute throughout a new tendering procedure. The national objectives, via the tender, go back to the local level for new interpretations. PRU and PRUSST also proceed with a territorial enlargement, according to the political growth of cities, that no longer confine their interest within their administrative borders, focusing instead on timely intervention aimed at solving specific internal problems: the town becomes conscious of its importance in the wider territory, and it seeks out new tasks and new potentials. The town’s territorial dimension widens or shrinks according to the potential task under consideration. This elastic perspective marks the gateway from a static to a dynamic vision of policies and interventions, in which each solution is the result of a combination of territorial relations.

It is thus now inappropriate to distinguish between town and spatial policies, especially when the ministry deals with cities having a national or even a European dimension. To plan the development of cities such as Trieste, Genoa or Palermo without taking the important role of their ports into account would be an obvious mistake; their development is so clearly linked to national functions. To consider Rome, Florence or Venice without considering their huge historical and cultural heritage would also be illogical. Integration of local needs and national interests has always been extremely important, as well as cooperation between the central government and the local authorities.

Key Programmes
So the main initiatives still ongoing are based on strategic programmes. Porti & Stazioni (ports and railway stations) aims at the regeneration of quarters between the port and the railway station, while also integrating the infrastructure in the urban tissue and increasing the effectiveness of its connecting function; the programme’s main objective is to improve access to the transport infrastructures and to develop modal interchange, particularly given the future development of seaways. Ministerial Decree 2522 of 27 December 2001 published in the G.U. of 12 July 2002, no. 162, art. 5 establishes the funding of innovative regeneration programmes for urban areas adjacent to railway stations and/or large ports with a history of economic and environmental decline, social exclusion and with residential building stock in severe need of upgrading. The programme also aims at experimental models, procedures and methods for organising and producing change in urban environments. The basic assumption is that railway stations and ports have the potential to become the new urban and territorial nodes, capable of creating high quality development by fully exploiting the opportunities offered by the interchange and the exchange between networks and services of all types.

The Ministerial Decree of 10 July 2003 no. 988 and CIPE Deliberation no. 36/2002 approved SISTEMA, an Italian acronym for multi-action integrated territorial development. It contributes to setting up innovative projects of particular territorial and environmental significance, in collaboration with local authorities and within the regional planning framework. The key objective is to devise and implement strategic development initiatives in areas interested in the presence of infrastructure systems of primary importance, promoting a poly-centric development model and strengthening the ties between infrastructures, urban systems and secondary networks.

21 target areas within the 18 systems stood out for their capability of consistently pursuing innovation, and their potential to benefit from the implementation of new infrastructures was identified. Here SISTEMA has been handed the task of creating pilot projects detailing how to develop competition while also aiming at cohesion — and how to implement regional policies. The 21 areas are becoming ever-more homogenous now that the project is working on the connections between these areas and international and national transport networks. In this it is balancing the type of development projects typical of large cities, against a policy for average cities positioned as key players in territorial development and thus polycentric development.

The importance of urban policy in Italy is underlined by the national edition of the European initiative URBAN, covering 20 more Italian cities.

The latest initiative is the ‘Legge obiettivo per le città’ (objective law for cities and towns). Its starting point is the role cities and towns play in territorial development. Italy is after all famous as the ‘thousand cities’ nation, meaning that — although the Italian Regions have strong territorial planning responsibilities — the local authorities are the nation’s real connective tissue. They exercise their own taxation capacity, based mainly on property (ICI).
Municipalities are represented nationally by the ANCI (National Association of Italian Municipalities) and other significant associations, with an office in Brussels (IDEALI).