Policies, Plans and Projects Governing the City-region of Milan 1 the Evolution of the City Region: Decentralisation and Centralisation

Like many other metropolitan cities, Milan has experienced spatial decentralization of industry and population during the last decades. At present, a multiplicity of settlement patterns can be observed. Particularly the highly industrialized North has been able to strengthen its position in many sectors with areas of specialization and intense growth based mostly on small enterprise. This article presents the evolution of the city-region Milan and the metropolitan governance experience in the Milanese area. It argues that new demand for general spatial planning is basically tied much more to the problem of constructing and legitimating choices than of certifying rights; of making action possible rather than of imposing choices based on rational technical principles. Furthermore , a demand for reference frameworks to facilitate cooperation and agreement in unstable and highly fragmented situations is identified. The case of Milan gives strong evidence that any of the problems which have prevented metropolitan governments from being effective or even coming into existence are positively solved when there is a bottom-up aggregation of municipalities and actors. We know that with the increasing importance of economic forces on a global scale, thanks to advanced technologies and deregulated trade barriers , metropolitan cities have experienced spatial decentralization of industry and population. Urban sprawl has undoubtedly become a common feature of the modern metropolis. Populations have moved out of the urban cores and settled into surrounding suburbs and the countryside. Technology now makes it more possible for people to carry out their work at greater distances from urban cores. The below table (Kantor and Savitch, 2002) displays this decline of the city center in terms of population. As observed from the figures, the rate of population decrease for Milan between 1970 and 2000 is about 25%. In examining the population decline in European cities, it is evident that the rate of population decline in Milan seems to be comparatively high. This figure has to take into account the fact that the territorial extension of the municipality of Milan is very small (181.7 km 2). Even though it is important to notice that the core city has experienced an important decline in population that now seems to have ended. But during the long period of population decline , it is all too evident that the city experiences a process of residential de-centralisation due to a variety of factors: the search for better living conditions, prices of the property market, …