Growing up and going through my teenage years in a small village in Northern Italy, I often felt trapped, too distant
from the places where everything seemed to be happening. Life was going on in
the city, and I was always a too long commute away from it. Years later, as the
lockdown froze many of us in unexpected circumstances and living arrangements,
I found myself back in the same village I had been trying to escape for years.
But things felt a bit different this time. As the city turned into a silent
concrete body, devoid of all the social and cultural life that made it so
appealing, the ‘boring’ countryside began instead to feel like an idyllic
location, with its greenery and outdoor spaces that made isolation seem a bit
more bearable.
This change in perspective wasn’t peculiar to my own life, but came instead at the centre of public discourse through the words of well-known architects, politicians and journalists, who began to emphasise the potential that the remote and isolated areas of the country have to be at the forefront in shaping the post-pandemic future. In particular, the words of archistar Stefano Boeri were often invoked in the past few weeks. The architect, known for his projects focused on sustainability and urban reforestation, reflected on how the pandemic influenced our living choices and urged many of us to leave the city to find refuge in scarcely populated villages. According to Boeri, this trend should be seen as an important opportunity for the country to rethink its urban development patterns and to save those areas that are today nearly abandoned. Along the same lines, many observers saw this crisis as a much-needed occasion to rethink tourism, reducing the pressure of over-tourism on cities and promoting new out of the beaten path experiences that could be beneficial for more remote locations.
Staffa, Macugnaga, Monte Rosa. Source: Author
But aside from temporarily coming under the spotlight, in Italy the question of how to deal with marginal and
fragile areas, better known as aree interne (inner areas), is one that
for too long has been left out from public debate and political agendas. The
past decades were characterised by an urban-centred approach to development, which led to a concentration of wealth, resources
and services in few urban areas, resulting in deep territorial inequalities. As
public and private investments kept flowing towards cities, the aree interne
– corresponding to 60% of the national territory and inhabited by almost a
quarter of the country’s population – remained untended. Local development
mostly took the form of residual or compensative policies, always too unsystematic and fragmented to actually
revert the trends of impoverishment and depopulation that came to be associated
to the aree interne.
If we broaden our geographic focus, we discover that the issue of
territorial disparity is not peculiar to the Italian context. Indeed, in most
countries around the world it is possible to observe a similarly stark divide
between few attractive cities on one side and a multitude of small peripheral
towns and villages on the other side. Experts even coined the expressions ‘left-behind places’ and ‘places that don’t matter’to refer to those
areas that are excluded from an increasingly tight network of global cities. As
stressed by Filippo Tantillo, expert of territorial development, the European
inner areas have a lot in common and are characterised by the same dynamics, to
the point that ‘Blanca, in Spain, is more similar to Faeto, in Puglia
than it is to Madrid’. Indeed, in
spite of being diverse in terms of geographical conformation, history and local
culture, such areas share a common fragility, determined by the scarcity of
services and opportunities that is slowly causing their decay.
In an attempt to close this gap, the European Union has been addressing the issue of territorial disparity through its cohesion policy. While the focus on European regional development is not new, the past few years saw an important evolution in the way cohesion is conceived and implemented. Indeed, a debate arose regarding the need to develop a place-based and place-sensitive approach to tackle territorial inequalities, both among member countries and within each of them. This approach was introduced during the last budget period, and will be put to further test through the 2021-2027 cohesion policy, which states among its aims that of ‘supporting locally-led development strategies’.
Staffa, Macugnaga, Monte Rosa. Source: Author
Among the promotors of this paradigm shift was Fabrizio Barca, former Minister for Territorial Cohesion, who was also behind the development of the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) launched in 2014. A joint effort bringing together the Agency for Territorial Cohesion, several Ministries and all levels of government from national to local, the strategy has an ambitious goal. It aims to revert the trends of depopulation, impoverishment and isolation that came to characterise the inner areas as a consequence of decades of neglect. It sets out to do so in two ways: on one side it focuses on improving the offer of essential public services that are often lacking in marginal areas, while on the other side it promotes place-based solutions to place-specific issues, involving in the process local stakeholders, communities and policymakers.
A few years after the launch of the Strategy, it is still too early to
fully assess the effects of the policy. However, it is possible to take stock
of the first achievements, as the SNAI experts Fabrizio Barca, Filippo Tantillo
and Giovanni Carrosio do in this conversation. In the first place, the Strategy has the merit of having brought inner
areas back into the political debate after years of neglect. Together with
this, it produced an important change in the way such areas are perceived, both
by their inhabitants and by policy makers. It reactivated the energies existing
on the territories by enabling local actors to actually have a space to present
and discuss their ideas and to access the resources needed to develop their
projects. Furthermore, the SNAI introduced a new way to look at the Italian
territory that goes beyond the classic North-South and city-countryside divides
and brings the focus on marginality, access to service and opportunities. In
spite of such important results, there are still some obstacles to the
implementation of the strategy, which often clashes with the too rigid
structures of local, regional and natural authorities, that are usually
reluctant to change.
When we become familiar with the fragility and widespread decay that
still characterises the majority of inner areas, the return to the villages
imagined by many observers during the global pandemic appears in a new and less optimistic light. If we want to go beyond a fleeting interest in these
territories, if we want our inner areas to be more than a mere refuge, we need
to make them more attractive. This can be done only by ensuring access to basic
services and by creating new economic, social and cultural opportunities, so
that these territories can become places where people will want to remain. Now
that the virus brought our attention to the inner areas, we have to maintain
this attention and to work towards a more structural transformation. The SNAI represents a first fundamental step in this
direction, but it needs to be accompanied by a broader change in the way we look
at different areas and regions. We will have to overcome the dichotomy between
centre and marginal areas, to move away from a rhetoric of winner and losers
and to focus on how to develop a paradigm able to account for and build on the
diversity that characterizes our territories.
Kemeny, T. & Storper, M.
(2020) Superstar cities and left-behind places: disruptive innovation, labor
demand, and interregional inequality. Working Paper (41). International
Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science,
London, UK. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103312/1/Kemeny_superstar_cities_left_behind_place_wp41.pdf
In the last few years, the commons have enriched themselves with their entry into political institutions at the level of states, large cities or regions, whether in Bolivia, Ecuador, Spain, Britain, France, Italy, and elsewhere in the world. How can this encounter inspire us? How does the commons paradigm fit with other proposals for a post-capitalist alternative, such as de-growth, social and solidarity economy, political ecology, open cooperativism, and much more? How to avoid the “commons washing” and recovery of the project and the values of the commons in the dominant discourse?
Professor Christian Iaione, LabGov coordinator, was between the experts and practitioners interviewed in this occasion. In his speech he touches on different topics: from the experiences that are taking place in numerous Italian cities around the urban commons to the importance of creating a stronger network of cities committed to addressing emerging urban issues; from the understanding of the value of experimentation to development of the capacity to address failure; from the importance to involve all local actors in the care and regeneration of the urban commons to the exigency of rethinking the role of the State and of the local administration.
How to transform a sleeping giant into a special space open to everyone?
This is the question that will be at the center of the discussions at the meeting that will take place on Saturday the 27th of May 2017 at the ex-Military Hospital, also known as SS. Trinità delle Monache complex.
The event is organized by the URBACT Local Group, a network of local actors that are taking part in the “2nd Chance – Waking up the sleeping giants” project promoted by Naples Municipality. This meeting will offer an important occasion to come together and define the initiatives that will be implemented with the aim of waking up the ex-Hospital, a precious urban complex located in the heart of the city, which currently lies into abandonment. Everyone who cares about the destiny of this important resource is invited to participate in the event to and to share his ideas, desires, experiences and proposals.
The event will adopt an OST (Open Space Technology) methodology, which favors an open debate and the development of creative and innovative ideas. The participants will spend the first half an hour of the meeting defining together the program of the day, and afterwards they will divide into working tables where they will discuss all the topics considered relevant by the participants. All the issues discussed and the proposals emerged will be collected into a final Instant Book.
At LabGov we are following with great interest the numerous and innovative experiences that are taking place in Naples around the urban commons and that we presented in a previous article, and also in this occasion our coordinator, Professor Christian Iaione, will be present at the event.
The city of Reggio nell’Emilia (better known as Reggio Emilia), located in the hearth of Emilia Romagna, counts a population of 172.000 inhabitants. 27.000 of them are involved in activities promoting social cohesion.
These numbers, which highlight the existence of a strong social capital, help us understand the peculiarity of the approach adopted by the city administration. According to Valeria Montanari, Councilor for innovation, administrative simplification, participation and care of the neighborhoods, this peculiarity lies in the idea of “the city as an infrastructure that is made available to people”[1]. In line with this view, the administration guided by Major Luca Vecchi, elected in 2014, has been promoting citizens’ participation in policy making, allowing for “the co-design not only of the actions, but also of the objectives that the city wants to pursue”[2].
The choice to adopt a governance paradigm based on participation and collaboration implies the willingness to challenge and to change the traditional role of the public administration and its relationship with citizens. A process of institutional and bureaucratic innovation is being developed by the administration, which rather than simply providing services to their citizens aims at becoming an enabler for participatory paths and practices, bringing citizens at the center of the decision-making process. As explained by Nicoletta Levi[3], who is in charge of the service Policies for Responsible Protagonism and Smart City, what is being done in Reggio Emilia is strongly experimental, and this requires the administration to continuously stop to understand in which direction they are going. Collaboration might create a strong tension between the rigidity and division that characterize the public administration functioning and the strong flexibility and interconnectedness typical of the reality we live in. To be able to create a dialogue with the civil society the public administration should undergo a transformation and should learn how to work horizontally and be more flexible.
Being aware of this framework allows us to fully understand the innovative processes activated by the city in the last years.
The QUA Program – (Neighborhood as a Commons)
The city of Reggio Emilia has been directly affected by a law that entered into force in March 2010, which prevents cities with less than 250.000 inhabitants to organize their territory into districts (circoscrizioni in Italian). Rather than being an obstacle, this law became an occasion for the city Reggio Emilia to think of new forms of decentralization and city management and to focus on the needs of its citizens. What is particularly interesting about the approach adopted by the city of Reggio Emilia is the choice to work at neighborhood level and to adopt neighborhoods as the unit of measure.
During a visit to the community gardens managed by the cultural center L’Orologio
This is evident when we look at the project QUA (neighborhood as commons) which aims not only at strengthening citizens’ participation, but also at giving citizens a protagonist role, both as single individuals and as associations and informal networks. In December 2015 the City Council of Reggio Emilia approved the Regulation for citizenship labs (full text in Italian is available here). The Regulation establishes collaboration, stimulated and supported through participatory paths, as a crucial feature in the relationship between citizens and the local administration for the care of the city and of the community itself.
As explained on the official website of the city, this document is freely inspired to the Bologna Regulation, but it has a strong territorial connotation as it is adapted to the peculiarity of the local community and environment. Therefore, it underlines how neighborhoods should be understood as commons, meaning with this as fields where associations, informal networks, citizens and administration can connect and can develop together a new idea of participation and active citizenship.
The city has been divided into 19 neighborhoods, or territorial areas (ambiti territoriali), which are being the theater for the establishment of CitizenshipLaboratories and Citizenship Agreements, that are being developed and coordinated by the new figure of the Neighborhood Architect.
The Regulation sets a procedural path, made of 9 phases, to be followed by the Laboratories. The Architect plays a fundamental role in the whole process as he is, using the words of Nicoletta Levi[4], an “activator of social resources and a mediator between center and periphery and between public and private”.
The project has been met with great interest by citizens, and the participation has been high. By December 2016, 9 agreements had already been signed, 896 people had taken part in the participatory paths and 64 projects had been defined. Between these projects we find really different experiences, ranging from the creation of a book-crossing network involving local libraries, community centers and citizens, who imagined and produced structures to be placed in public spaces that allow for the book exchange, to the development of Participation Houses (an example here), places located in the neighborhood that can facilitate interaction and dialogue between a variety of local actors. Furthermore, these projects also include the creation and management of urban gardens (one example are the gardens managed by the cultural space L’orologio) and the development of Wifi communities, like the one that has been put in place in Villa Coviolo, an area located at the South-West of the city .
CO-Reggio Emilia and the path of #CollaboratorioRe
The S.Peter Cloister, object of the #CollaboratorioRe co-design path
The commitment of the Municipality towards participation and collaboration in decision making processes and in city making is at the bases of the CO-Reggio Emilia[5]project, that was promoted by the local administration in collaboration with the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and with the scientific, strategical and organizational support of LabGov and Kilowatt.
The process began with the activation of the participatory path of #CollaboratorioRe, which brought together citizens, associations, private actors, cognitive institutions and members of the local administration (as envisaged by the quintuple helix[6] approach of urban co-goverance) and allowed them to collaboratively shape the future of the “Chiostri di San Pietro” area, a urban commons holding a particular relevance for the city and for its inhabitants.
As explained by Valeria Montanari “#CollaboratorioRe aimed at creating the first incubator of sharing and pooling economy of Reggio Emilia, a new urban actor that will revolutionize the way we think about the city and will emphasize the role that civic collaboration should play in the care and management of the urban commons”.
What makes the experience of #CollaboratorioRe particularly relevant is that while working on the regeneration of a physical space and on the creation of this new urban actor, the city is also activating a broader reflection on the idea of knowledge and culture as commons[7] by working on the relationship between technology and culture and by attempting to reduce technological inequality through education and informal exchange of information.
Conclusion
The experience of Reggio Emilia shows us that when institutions are willing to accept the challenge and to transform themselves, a paradigm change is really possible. By adopting a view of the city as an infrastructure that is made available to people, institutions and citizens are able to come together and collectively design the future of their neighborhoods, of the urban commons and of the city itself.
[3] Nicoletta Levi presented the experience of Reggio Emilia and of the project QUA – Quartiere Bene Comune in occasion of the CO-city project presentation in Turin,on March the 31st 2017.
[7] Y. BENKLER, Commons and growth: the essential role of open commons in market economies, The University of Chicago Law Review, 2013, and C. HESS, E. OSTROM, Understanding Knowledge as a Commons, from theory to practice, The MIT Press, 2007
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Reggio Emilia è una città caratterizzata da un grande capitale sociale: su 172 mila abitanti, 27 mila sono impegnati in attività di coesione sociale. Questi numeri ci aiutano a capire la particolarità dell’approccio adottato dell’amministrazione locale che, come ci spiega Valeria Montanari, Assessora ad Agenda digitale, partecipazione e cura dei quartieri, è legata all’idea della città come infrastruttura a disposizione delle persone.
The 2013 edition of the Biennial saw the approval of the Charter of Public Space (available here in Italian), which “aims to be the document for all those who believe in the city and in its unique capability of fostering sociability, meeting, coexistence, freedom and democracy; and in its vocation to express and realize all these values through public spaces”. Therefore, the Biennial speaks to local administrations, universities, cultural associations, experts and practitioners, citizens and students, with the aim of promoting interdisciplinary projects involving the main urban actors.
In line with this view, this year’s edition of the Biennial addresses the topic of planning and managing public space from different perspectives and thanks to the contribution of numerous actors active in this field. The program of the event, available on the website, is the result of the call “Making Public Spaces” launched in December, which saw the contribution of small and medium municipalities, schools, universities, cultural associations, provincial architects orders and regional sections of the National Institute of City Planning.
The activities of the Biennial will begin on the 25th, with the opening greetings and the speeches of the promoters, followed by a series of workshop that will address different aspects of urban regeneration: mobility, accessibility, reuse, security, environmental resilience, management, social innovation, technologies.The workshops will continue on the morning of the 26th, and will be followed by two roundtables where the coordinators of the workshops will come together to draw some proposals and suggestions that will be presented during the final day. On the 27th, after the screening of the movies that won the “Filming the City” call, there will be a final debate, which will see the participation of members of foreign city administrations, from Lubiana to Bogotà and Johannesburg.
LabGov will be present at the event, where we will take part in different roundtables: on the 25th Paola Cannavò (representing LabGov and UD Lab, UniCal) will be between the discussants in a workshop titled “Travel in the Governance of the Commons”, while Chiara Prevete (LabGov’s executive director) will take part in the working table “Conflicts: resistances met and transformations obtained”, within framework of the same workshop. On the 26th LabGov will also be present at the workshop “Green and Blue Infrastructures in the Project of the Contemporary City”.
Here is the complete program of the Biennial:
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Dal 25 al 27 maggio 2017 avrà luogo a Roma la quarta edizione della Biennale Dello Spazio Pubblico, promossa dall’Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica assieme alla sua sezione laziale, dal Consiglio Nazionale degli Architetti Pianificatori Paesaggisti e Conservatori, dall’Ordine degli architetti di Roma e dal Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università Roma Tre, con la collaborazione di UN – Habitat e di ANCI.
“Dopo l’apertura dei lavori, prevista il 25 maggio con i saluti istituzionali e gli interventi dei promotori, nel pomeriggio della stessa giornata e nella mattina del 26 maggio si svolgeranno i workshop che affronteranno diversi aspetti della rigenerazione urbana: mobilità, accessibilità, riuso, sicurezza, resilienza ambientale, gestione, innovazione sociale, tecnologie. Nel pomeriggio del 26 maggio i coordinatori dei 27 workshop si riuniranno in due tavole rotonde dalle quali emergeranno indicazioni, proposte e suggerimenti da presentare nella giornata conclusiva che prevede anche un dibattito al quale prenderanno parte amministratori di città di altri paesi, la premiazione e la proiezione dei video vincitori della call “Filmare la città”, iniziativa realizzata assieme all’International Fest Roma Film Corto – Independent Cinema”.
Il programma completo dell’evento è disponibile qui.
