The rollercoaster of urban regeneration in Turin, Italy

The city of Turin constitutes an interesting case regarding urban regeneration in Europe. Over the decades, the city has dealt with periodic social and economic crises that have influenced the evolution of the city’s institutional arrangements and policies. During the 1990s, the rapid deindustrialisation has configured policy formulation in multiple ways, especially in the field of urban regenera- tion in which Turin became a national best practice. The city won several calls for projects and programmes to intervene with an integrated and area-based approach in the most difficult neighbourhoods focusing on physical, social, and economic priorities. This phase of urban policies quickly fell apart at the end of the 2000s when the country and the city itself had to deal with the global financial crisis. Nevertheless, the approach to deal with the complex issues of Turin’s peripheries was not completely lost. The present work aims to frame the alternating periods of expansion and reces- sion of Turin’s urban regeneration over time, according to: the promoters of the initiatives (the main actor/s, their mediation skills/governance, and partnerships); the economic models and financial sustainability; the path-dependent character, the legacies and the timely opportunities; the tangible and intangible conflicts.