Planning for Climate Change: Adaptation Actions and Future Challenges in the Italian Cities

Climate change is a prominent concern of the 21th-century daily life so much that cities worldwide have been widely engaged in contrasting it. In this scenario, urban resilience is becoming one of the top priorities of development agendas and a guiding principle of the policy governance of contemporary cities. This paper discusses the spread of the urban resilience paradigm within the field of Italian spatial planning focusing in particular on the national approach to adaptation and the recent - and unique - experiences of Bologna and Ancona local plans. The cases are discussed about their approach to adaptation within the academic debate on climate change and to their contents and procedures. The paper puts light on one side on the fundamental role of cities to be pivotal to contrast the climate change and on the other side on the implications of adaptation in the local policy-making processes advancing future challenges for Italian spatial planning.