From Periphery to City, from City to Metropolitan Area: Growth of Urban Periphery, Strategies and Transformations

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze the structure, organization and attributions that characterize the Metropolitan Cities or Areas present in certain European Union countries. This is a complex path, developed taking into account the considerable differences between the historical experiences, the institutional structures and the economic-social conditions that have characterized the various forms in which the metropolitan experience was “built” in the various national contexts. In this research work we present the results of an analysis that took care of the city and of the relationships between the urban transformation paths and the processes of socio-economic development at the local level, the expansion of the same and the strategies of development. First of all we tried to analyze contemporary trends dominating the urban development and the real dynamics that underline the changes occurred in urban planning especially in recent years. Economic and social changes at the international level, have heavily influenced the evolution and unfolding of the urban dimension and this work, first proposes a theoretical and interpretative framework of urban reality that changes and subsequently it focuses on Europe and Italy, in order to investigate institutional aspects, normative indications, settlement models, public policies adopted and examples of realized practices, which have intervened on urban transformations and related processes of development. The aim is to offer a reasoned contribution to the possible and significant models of organization and governance of metropolitan areas in Europe, with ideas or solutions to outline our metropolitan model.