The Italian settlement system counts almost 8,000 municipalities and is characterised by a highly polycentric network of small- and medium-sized cities that constitutes the country development backbone alongside a small number of core metropolitan areas (Bonavero et al., 1999). Within this framework, municipalities compete to attract private development investments on their territories, with this competition having become fiercer and fiercer throughout the last decades especially for small administrative units, as a consequence, first, of the incremental cuts to local public budgets and, then, of the global economic crisis (Cotella et al, 2015a; Tulumello et al., 2020). Traditionally, spatial planning has contributed to this process, with municipal authorities that, despite their size, enjoy a high level of autonomy in prescriptively regulating land uses for the territories they are responsible for, in the absence of virtually any relevant supra-local coordination framework. Therefore, since the 1950s, Italian municipal governments have used spatial planning and, in particular, the provision of land-use transformation rights through binding zoning, as a tool to attract investments, hence consolidating political consensus (Berisha et al., 2020). All this occurred to the detriment of the sustainability of urbanisation process, leading to high land-take rates and overall increasing urban sprawl (ISPRA, 2018). Whereas the above generally stands true for the whole country, the highly regionalised flavour of the Italian administrative framework has progressively contributed to the differentiation of regional spatial governance and planning systems. Through the promulgation of specific laws on the matter, regions had through time introduced a number of innovative elements, aiming at solving the most pressing challenges that they were facing (Servillo and Lingua, 2014). This stands true for the Emilia-Romagna region that, in order to ensure further coordination between small municipalities in local spatial planning activities, has since 2000 introduced a number of reforms, overall aiming at a greater sustainability of the spatial transformations.

Inter-Municipal Spatial Planning as a Tool to Prevent Small-Town Competition: The Case of the Emilia-Romagna Region / Cotella, Giancarlo; Berisha, Erblin - In: The Routledge Handbook of Small Towns / Jerzy Bansky. - STAMPA. - London : Routledge, 2021. - ISBN 9781003094203. - pp. 313-329 [10.4324/9781003094203]

Inter-Municipal Spatial Planning as a Tool to Prevent Small-Town Competition: The Case of the Emilia-Romagna Region

Giancarlo Cotella;Erblin Berisha
2021

Abstract

The Italian settlement system counts almost 8,000 municipalities and is characterised by a highly polycentric network of small- and medium-sized cities that constitutes the country development backbone alongside a small number of core metropolitan areas (Bonavero et al., 1999). Within this framework, municipalities compete to attract private development investments on their territories, with this competition having become fiercer and fiercer throughout the last decades especially for small administrative units, as a consequence, first, of the incremental cuts to local public budgets and, then, of the global economic crisis (Cotella et al, 2015a; Tulumello et al., 2020). Traditionally, spatial planning has contributed to this process, with municipal authorities that, despite their size, enjoy a high level of autonomy in prescriptively regulating land uses for the territories they are responsible for, in the absence of virtually any relevant supra-local coordination framework. Therefore, since the 1950s, Italian municipal governments have used spatial planning and, in particular, the provision of land-use transformation rights through binding zoning, as a tool to attract investments, hence consolidating political consensus (Berisha et al., 2020). All this occurred to the detriment of the sustainability of urbanisation process, leading to high land-take rates and overall increasing urban sprawl (ISPRA, 2018). Whereas the above generally stands true for the whole country, the highly regionalised flavour of the Italian administrative framework has progressively contributed to the differentiation of regional spatial governance and planning systems. Through the promulgation of specific laws on the matter, regions had through time introduced a number of innovative elements, aiming at solving the most pressing challenges that they were facing (Servillo and Lingua, 2014). This stands true for the Emilia-Romagna region that, in order to ensure further coordination between small municipalities in local spatial planning activities, has since 2000 introduced a number of reforms, overall aiming at a greater sustainability of the spatial transformations.
2021
9781003094203
The Routledge Handbook of Small Towns
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11583/2922836