by Elisa Caruso
2021, Venice AESOP Annual Congress
The process of political and administrative rescaling affecting Italian cities and regions under the Law 56/2014, with the consequent establishment of metropolitan cities, has triggered new forms of territorial conflicts. In this paper,... more
The process of political and administrative rescaling affecting Italian cities and regions under the Law 56/2014, with the consequent establishment of metropolitan cities, has triggered new forms of territorial conflicts. In this paper, conflicts have risen to a privileged observatory to investigate government problems at the regional scale and to identify possible ways for an inclusive governance of Metropolitan territory. The main purpose is to propose a reflection on the territorial conflicts about metropolitan identity and on the role of the small villages in the promotion of forms of aggregation with a bottom up approach, as resource for the strategic government of the territory and the management of territorial conflicts. Focus of this paper is a case study concerning a process of empowerment of a group of citizens engaged in the promotion of a local project that has become a pilot project of regeneration of community places in the frame of the Strategic Metropolitan Plan of Florence. A tiny group of citizen who shared the same common destiny for absence of a connection with the municipal water supply chain. Instead of carrying out a territorial protest and they become an identity movement and, through the recognition of the patrimonial value of places, engaged a multiactorial and multiscalar renewal project aimed to the rebirth of the local community. The joint effort for the self-construction of the lacing of the aqueduct has become the kick off for the realization of an integrated project for the requalification of the complex of Sant'Angelo Vico L’Abate as a place of religious aggregation, social and producer of wealth and new economies. The contribution deals with the reconsideration of territorial conflicts in regional cities as a strategic action for the interaction between local and metropolitan institutions and, above all, as a strong point for enhancing governance at the regional level for the construction of a shared vision for development of actual and future of the Metropolitan city.