El articulo analiza el process de integracion territorial de la Union Europea. En la aventura europea han sido generalmente los exitos indirectos a revelarse como los mas productivos; y su incidencia se revela aun mayormente en las [...]]]>

International Forum on the Social Science, Policy Nexus (IFSP), Unesco-Most, 20-24 Feb., MERCOSUR, Montevideo (UR), 2005.

El articulo analiza el process de integracion territorial de la Union Europea. En la aventura europea han sido generalmente los exitos indirectos a revelarse como los mas productivos; y su incidencia se revela aun mayormente en las politicas territoriales. Hoy en dia son evidentes las dificultades resultante del crecimiento de los conflictos y del debate ideologico sobre el gobierno del planeta. La Union Europea – aun con sus mil contradicciones- es un experimento ‘regional’ que va en la direccion de un gobierno mundial de la economia y del medio ambiente, es asimismo un experiemento limitado y atacado. Es una negociacion politica en marcha, a veces dinamica, a veces estatica, en la cual se elaboran nuevas politicas inovativas con concepciones de nuevas escalas.

Esta perspectiva hace particularmente interesante la vision territorial del experimento europeo, dado que el territorio no esta en el centro de quien sostiene la integracion de los mercados o la prioridad de la cohesion social. Sin embargo el territorio es un area en aumento de policy, politicas y una fuente creciente de mobilidad para los recursos que nutres el proyecto europeo.

politiquas urbanas, integracion territorial, Union Europea

This paper stresses the apparent “family resemblance” of a variety of integrated programmes focusing on spatial development.

Integrated local actions have been promoted in several fields in the last ten years. Actually, a strong [...]]]> “Un ritratto di famiglia”, Urbanistica 119, 2002

This paper stresses the apparent “family resemblance” of a variety of integrated programmes focusing on spatial development.

Integrated local actions have been promoted in several fields in the last ten years. Actually, a strong impetus towards innovating urban and regional policies has been witnessed during the last decade, both at local and at strategic level.

Innovation has resulted from different attempts in different fields. A survey should include at least: some European Union initiatives, such as Urban for regeneration and Leader for agriculture; subsequent and progressively more sophisticated versions of the national urban renewal programme (Pru, Priu and Cdq); the agreements devised by “Patti territoriali” in the framework of the national “negotiated” programming fostering local development, later assumed by the EU as well as Pacts for employment; and finally the “strategic vision” aimed to amalgamate locally the actions envisaged by the Community Support Framework.

More precisely, two main strands seem in one way or another to have been brought together: the partnership for local development, and the mix of different functional actions fostered by programmes for the renewal of urban downgraded areas, yet often expanding to wider aims. Subsequent generations of such programmes have in fact elaborated upon the same integrated approach, whose last offspring are the Sustainable Development Schemes (Prusst, Programmi di recupero urbano e sviluppo sostenibile del territorio) on the one hand, and the Local actions for spatial development (Pit, Programmi integrati territoriali) on the other.

Thus several programmes have fostered a variety of aims maintaining the same approach and moreover spreading actions over the same area. Probably because of these two reasons, the “family groups” were brought together and mingled.

A few common features may possibly be detected: a) all the programmes are locally bounded actions increasingly concerned with the local development and employment issues; b) they foster a “vision” of spatial development for the whole area, the idea of “territorio” implying community, environment and the local heritage as well; c) intended initially as a group of detached measures, some have progressed toward compound social and economic features; d) dealing with the implementation process seems to trigger an embryo co-operation between local authorities and recently powerful regions.

Such programmes have envisaged a variety of innovating actions so far, yet they are not necessarily new. Indeed, the aim of integrating spatial development policies dates back to post war times, standing out as a landmark in the public policy landscape of the mid-century. Such an evolutionary change has brought together severed traditions in distant fields such as infrastructure, economic development, environment and social welfare. The real questions are thus: how close have they come, what is the “recipe” of such integration, and what is the quality?

It must be admitted that programmes seldom went further than a shallow blend of functional measures, and did not overcome what may be called the functional limit of integration. Development projects of the ‘50s for instance were mainly a one-sector, one-actor mix of actions. International agencies insisted on concentrating on a single activity providing supposedly beneficial one-sided shocks to the entire economy.

However, a more integrated approach did sometimes crop up in the framework of the national economic development programme for the South; for instance, some integrated actions tried out after World War II targeted on housing, health and education, strongly influenced by a peculiar mixture of Italian historicism and US regionalism. As geographical patterns are formed by history, the matching up between society and environment moulded the whole territory. In turn, such ideology maintained that its structural features offered a basis for a comprehensive strategy of spatial development.

A second strand may be traced back to the 70s, to the growing awareness that regional spatial frameworks were affecting the outcome of the economic measures taken for the development of the South. To replace the budgetary style of programming, a complex of incentives and local agreement procedures were devised, tools to be generalised later in the 90s. However, those first attempts did not overcome the functional limit already shown. Since then, a turn in strategy fostered a more negotiated approach and a strengthened effectiveness.

The chance to be effective is actually spread over the great variety of initiatives encompassed by any single programme: an exceedingly high variety -as has sometimes been remarked- justified however by a peculiar process of “generating projects”. However, a plurality of projects does not necessarily vie against the single vision behind the programme. On the contrary, dualism is a common feature of such programmes: a rigid envisioning level selects priorities and partnership; a flexible design level allows projects to be nurtured and the shortcomings occurring in the implementation process to be countered.

Such federalist and resilient programmes may well be differentiated by contents and purposes even if quite similar in their financial resources and procedures. Actually, similar schemes are operating for urban renewal, improvement of the infrastructure network, preservation of the environment, local and sustainable development, etc.

The acknowledged mix has a double function: coping with local features as well as dealing with operational weaknesses. Beyond the variety of functions, however, also the spatial effects of the programmes are highly differentiated. As in other public policies, spatial effects depend on a variety of “territorial concepts”, which organise the correspondence of methods and aims.

Integrated programmes such as Urban combine several territorial concepts: the zoning of areas by functions, in order to delimit areas eligible for financial support and to determine the application of territorialized policies: the improvement of basic infrastructures, facilities and public services; the development of synergies to establish functional interdependencies among policies; the differentiation of policies, measures and technical assistance on the basis of specific territorial criteria.

However the logic of spatial effects is sometimes vague. In less than five years, about 1,600 actions have been laid down–of different dimension and scope- promising a huge investment of public resources (about 78 billion euros). The number of actions does indeed matter. An inflated style of programming raises a double issue: an excess of technicalities in the targeting of areas; a lack of capacity by agencies to gradually adjust to areas and actions.

Elsewhere the new style of programming is becoming tricky due to either the number of single actions, or the small size of most of them (in France the “politique de la ville” alone accounts formore than 2.500 actions).

As a consequence, it may be impossible to make out the whole picture, and the resulting jigsaw seems in any case to lack the due “democratic accountability”.

These somewhat unintelligible outcomes question the adequacy of local actions to match policy aims. It is an important question, yet one that cannot be met purely on theoretical grounds. If new programmes join a number of others targeting the same “spot” area -or neighbouring areas-, the issue arises of coordinating such actions. On the one side, a spatial development framework is needed to direct local actions, as the French reform of local planning seems to indicate; on the other, an “agreed vision” is required in order to underpin the framework.

As known, these double requirements are anything but easy to uphold. Particularly, difficulties are apparent when and where local authorities are weak, which is likely to happen for instance in southern regions. However, regeneration programmes (such as the Community Initiative Urban and some other national schemes in France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands) present a few unique features. They in fact assume a precise representation of the issues to be addressed, and a corresponding model of action. These two conjectures actually make a difference compared with other less targeted integrated programmes.

The representation tells us a story of the fracture in social cohesion that occurred at the end of the 70s, due to the superimposing of the unemployment and immigration issues, social exclusion and spatial unevenness being the more apparent results.

The model of action combines structural and contingent features in a multidimensional framework intended to offset situations stemming from a variety of causal factors. It is a participatory model since it was conceived, designed and implemented in participation with the stakeholders. Partnership is chosen not only for reasons of effectiveness, but also to mobilise local resources, to involve users, and to identify collectively the causes of social exclusion.

Falsifiable presumptions, and presumptions often argued for and against in other contexts. Yet logically necessary for the relevant uses of local action, as possibly happened with Urban.

Other integrated programmes have cared less about matching the representation and the model of action. When the first is ritual and not relevant, as possibly in experimenting with the Pit, the “agreed” vision tends to be weak, and the territorial criteria less coherent.

In conclusion, it has been maintained that two common features of integrated local policies are variety and integration, delimiting a vast field of experimentation bringing together previously separate sectors of public actions. Such integration goes well beyond the establishment of functional interdependencies among sector policies, as anticipated by early development policies. A practice of flexible integration, and not a completely different model, is instead emerging from the number and variety of cases.

During the 1990s the European Union consistently re-tuned its approach to the European territory by promoting new initiatives, policy networks and concepts. The concept of spatial development, a neologism, combines the German practice of regulatory planning of physical and environmental [...]]]> University Center for International Studies – University of Pittsburgh – February 2004

During the 1990s the European Union consistently re-tuned its approach to the European territory by promoting new initiatives, policy networks and concepts. The concept of spatial development, a neologism, combines the German practice of regulatory planning of physical and environmental factors with the British concern for local economic development. However, spatial development may be regarded as a case of ‘lite’ Europeanization—an incremental construction of a European policy field beyond formal competencies and treaties.

Before describing the multi-tiered framework of European spatial policies, a few elements deserve some consideration.

Concern for European spatial development has existed for a long time. This development, a result of trilateral negotiations between the European Commission, member states and local authorities, has relevant international implications.

The European Commission has been increasingly involved with spatial issues since the 1970s. Even if Brussels had never been granted a competence, interest in territorial and urban issues would be spurred by its regional policy. The regional policy of the mid-70s was conceived to balance development disparities between countries.

Within the framework of the Structural Funds, the European Commission was entitled to experiment and to study the spatial impact of regional development. The first step was to study the spatial impacts of European Union policies, which were feared to be major constraints to social cohesion. The European Commission also compared and assessed member states’ national and local planning systems.

European policies increasingly focused upon the role of cities as a growth engine; for instance, in the 1998 program entitled “Framework for Action,” the European Commission committed itself to more ‘urban sensitive’ policies. Eventually, the idea of ‘territorial cohesion’ (that is, the idea of a minimum endowment with public services) was presented in the European Union’s 2003 constitutional draft, along with the established concern for competitiveness and social cohesion.

Evidence of trans-national impacts of European Union actions grew after the birth of a single European currency in 1993. Both agricultural and regional policies—which account for most of the European Union budget—presented striking territorial effects. Global economic development has entailed manifold processes of territorialization, as in the case of global cities or industrial districts, which are sometimes the cue for the economic growth of entire member states.

Even more so, one has to consider that spatial development issues, such as those concerning environmental impacts, development priorities, urban concentration, transborder duplication or conflicts and the knitting together of infrastructure networks, have relevant international implications. Finally, spatial development involves localities.

The jigsaw puzzle of local government is somewhat complicated in Europe; the control of spatial development changes depending on miscellaneous arrangements between tiers of government in central, regional and federal states. In order to be successful, however, spatial policies often imply a reshuffling of competencies among different tiers of government which affects all member states’ constitutional systems. Thus the European Commission embarked upon trilateral negotiations with states and localities. As a result of the complex web of local and global issues and the involvement of various levels of government, the framework of spatial development is somewhat complicated.

Spatial policies have come to bear a resemblance to a wedding cake with at least four different tiers. The foundation of this cake metaphorically represents regional policy; the second tier symbolizes infrastructure networks and trans-European cooperation; the third tier corresponds to urban initiatives and the last tier represents a spatial perspective.

The first tier, regional policy, has, since the 70s, been the main concern for regions experiencing industrial decline. This concern has recently been reframed to encompass other regional disparities. Regional funds account for an important and growing share of the whole European Union budget. However, the main outcome of regional policy is infrastructure financing: about 80% of regional funds until 1988 and 33% since then went to road and railway construction. The management of funds has changed several times.

Thus far, the European Commission has provided additional funds to the programs promoted by member states; however, the share of the regional funds in the European Union budget has been steadily growing.

The second tier, Interreg, is the European Community’s most consistent initiative started in the wake of the Structural Funds’ reform in the late 1980s. Its basic objective was to develop cooperation among bordering regions. Since 2000, Interreg has impacted the whole continent and has addressed the objective of balancing development through cross-border, trans-national and interregional cooperation. Interreg mainly addresses the spatial impacts of the main transnational infrastructures. Urban policy is the third tier. The European Community was specifically concerned with cities while developing anti-poverty policies. Through the 1989 Urban Pilot Projects and the 1994 Urban program, the European Commission focused upon the economic development of socially run-down areas. The first Urban program selected 118 medium-sized cities in Europe targeting approximately 3.2 million people. In 2000, 70 more cities and towns were added. Action programs were drawn up reflecting the specific problems of neighborhoods. Emphasis was put on local participation, the involvement of citizens in the design and implementation of specific projects.

On the top layer of the metaphorical cake, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is a policy document that provides a ‘guide’ for the integrated strategies of territorial planning of member states. The idea of constructing a vision and a spatial perspective for the European territory actually originated in the Council of Europe as early as 1964.

Since 1989, however, several Conferences of Ministers for Territorial Planning and Regional Development took place, following the results of the trans-national studies of Europe 2000+, which is part of the legacy of former European Commission President Jacques Delors. The ESDP has three main objectives: polycentric and balanced sustainable development, integrated transport and communication and wise management of the natural and cultural heritage.

Polycentrism is a moderately compelling space formulation of the dynamics of development, indicating the need to balance the force of global concentration and the urban network. However, the ESDP would direct the preceding layers, namely regional policies; in practice, the cake would be turned on its head. Beyond the ESDP is grand rhetoric, a few policy corollaries are certainly influential. For example, the ESDP acknowledges that main urban regions will continue to account for the largest share of growth and innovation with the well being of the continent depending on the quality and balancing out of such urban regions.

In addition, the ESDP suggests that thickening the infrastructure network would enhance formation of ‘zones of global economic integration,’ somewhat expanding the urban spine that already stretches from London to Milan. Such zones would nourish the growth of Europe, similar to such zones as the Eastern Corridor and the Sun and Rust Belts in the United States. A few regions, such as the Mediterranean Arc from Barcelona to Marseille or the Baltic region, are currently credible candidates to become global zones. Territorial policies highlight some noteworthy corollaries of the Europeanization process. The European Commission pursues spatial policies because the European territory affects economic development and trans-national decisions impact localities.

This strengthens the networking of local authorities, who in turn easily adopt European models in the national arena. So far, the process has brought an expanding approach to the spatial organization of the whole continent, which implies a substantial renegotiation of regional policy. The future of spatial policy is blurred by the impact of concurrent pressures. On one hand, it is overloaded with expectations, addressing the dual problems of existing regional disparities and of the contradictory spatial effects of Community policies, while pursuing the challenging aim of “achieving a balanced and sustainable development, in particular by strengthening economic and social cohesion.” On the other hand, it encompasses the crucial relationship between state, region and localities, depending on how different government tiers are dealing with divergent aims such as competition, social cohesion, and sustainability. Even more so, the EDSP’s possible reframing of regional policies would require a strong agreement between member states, which is far from likely to happen in the actual political situation.

The Spatial Perspective is a quite fascinating area of European policy. In a way, it reflects the politics of Europe’s ‘nationalization,’ which bears some resemblance with the 1956 Eisenhower highway network. The United States highway network is a noteworthy example of the contribution that main infrastructures give to the political and economic integration of a large geographical area. It probably inspired Delors, when he remolded most of the territorial policies in 1985. Instead of highways, the grand European design insists upon a network of cities linked by high-speed trains.

The underlying promise is to spark development and to create sustainability—a valuable bet for a ‘lite’ policy.

A cavallo dello scorso decennio, le politiche pubbliche territoriali delle regioni hanno affrontato una sfida politica e cuturale in parte proveniente dall’esterno, in parte dovuta alla maturazione di sperimentazioni precedenti.

copertina donzelli

In questi [...]]]> Politiche, città e innovazione. Programmi regionali tra retoriche e cambiamento, a cura di, Roma, Donzelli, 2009

A cavallo dello scorso decennio, le politiche pubbliche territoriali delle regioni hanno affrontato una sfida politica e cuturale in parte proveniente dall’esterno, in parte dovuta alla maturazione di sperimentazioni precedenti.

copertina donzelli

In questi anni sono cambiati sia le tendenze globali che i riferimenti macroeconomici; e di conseguenza, i presupposti dei programmi che erano stati elaborati all’inizio del secolo sono rapidamente invecchiati. Più in generale, sono venuti meno i presupposti «cognitivi» delle politiche, i convincimenti, le aspettative, le descrizioni pertinenti sui quali riposavano obiettivi e programmi. Le trasformazioni sono state così profonde, che perfino le rappresentazioni organizzative e geografiche dei territori regionali hanno perso l’antica spinta propulsiva: le pur radicate metafore del distretto, della città fabbrica, della campagna urbanizzata, risultano oggi inoperose.

Al tempo stesso, la scorsa stagione di programmazione ha avviato sperimentazioni promettenti; sono stati messi in atto dispositivi di integrazione tra settori diversi; la territorializzazione delle politiche è stata messa quasi dappertutto in agenda; la progressiva attuazione delle misure ha posto la mano e parzialmente corretto le indicazioni di programma.

Come hanno dunque reagito le regioni, come sono evoluti i programmi territoriali in Italia in questo nuovo decennio? Sebbene sia ancora presto per valutare gli esiti materiali, si possono misurare almeno gli «slittamenti» nelle rappresentazioni programmatiche. Questo volume esamina dunque come il territorio sia stato assunto e tematizzato nel discorso delle politiche, in particolare nei programmi predisposti per le città e l’innovazione tecnologica; e ne verifica la consistenza e stabilità nei discorsi programmatici, nonchè la coerenza con l’obiettivo espresso della competitività. Un approccio discorsivo che puo’ disegnare solo in parte scenari alternativi; ma che consente di individuare problemi e priorità del ciclo di programmazione in corso.

La prima parte argomenta l’esaurimento delle tradizionali visioni dello sviluppo e dei modi di territorializzarlo, e una serie di spunti critici. Uno di questi riguarda le città e le aree metropolitane, che vengono esaminate in una specie di «atlante» tematico elaborato sui dati censuari comunali. La forma, struttura e peculiarità dell’armatura metropolitana influenzano le decisioni di politica urbana e di innovazione. Da questi due punti di vista vengono offerti degli approfondimenti critici, e una serrata revisione delle premesse concettuali e degli esiti operativi.

La seconda parte del volume contiene i quattro casi studio relativi a regioni del Centro-nord (Piemonte, Veneto, Toscana e Lazio). A valle di un medesimo quadro ispirativo e di regole operative uniformi, gli elementi cruciali della programmazione nei quattro casi (perimetri, priorità, concentrazione, integrazione, innovazione) sono risultati ampiamente differenziati e, soprattutto, sono evoluti in modo diverso.

Oggi, la transizione insediativa e produttiva delle regioni sembrerebbe richiedere un’ulteriore revisione delle immagini guida. Il tema del Piemonte non è più la difesa o il superamento della Fiat, come non è più la difesa o il superamento del distretto il tema del Veneto o della Toscana.

La ricerca segnala che non sono ancora disponibili scenari territoriali adeguati alla nuove condizioni di programmazione. Sono pero’ piu’ chiari i requisiti. Servono rappresentazioni territoriali sufficientemente pertinenti per dare un quadro d’ancoraggio alle scelte; e, al tempo stesso, selettive quanto basta per non disperdere gli investimenti. Ancora molto resta da fare. Le esperienze di territorializzazione sono state limitate; e anche l’integrazione degli interventi ha incontrato dei limiti. Ma per altri versi, le esperienze esaminate dai saggi compresi nel volume sono positive. Il riconoscimento delle differenze e la mobilitazione dei territori siano divenuti un patrimonio comune, possono essere considerati un lascito durevole dell’epoca appena trascorsa.

Questa lettura incrociata delle ricerche prodotte da Picture non cerca di essere esaustiva ma, al contrario, di forzare alcuni temi comuni e problemi soggiacenti alle diverse angolazioni. In questo modo, si cerca di offrire delle occasioni di riflessione per la città di Prato nel momento in cui questa [...]]]> Prato District Letture incrociate

Questa lettura incrociata delle ricerche prodotte da Picture non cerca di essere esaustiva ma, al contrario, di forzare alcuni temi comuni e problemi soggiacenti alle diverse angolazioni. In questo modo, si cerca di offrire delle occasioni di riflessione per la città di Prato nel momento in cui questa affronta una nuova stagione di cambiamento. I temi di questa lettura insistono in particolare sui modi in cui l’organizzazione urbana influenza le attività economiche, la vita quotidiana e lo sviluppo urbano.