(Urban) sustainability in practice: Insights from the Veneto region

Since the 1980s, the Veneto region has been singled out as the engine of the Italian economy. Its spatial and governance structure was the outcome of a multiplicity of individual/joint/organisational behaviours, which generated a set of very complex ‘perverse effects’ (primarily environmental). Moreover, its paths of modernisation, which were still effective in the 1980s, are now undergoing rapid transformation (due to globalisation and internationalisation of businesses, erosion of social ties, Europeanisation, environmental issues, different populations, the crisis of traditional systems of representation etc) and it is still not clear what the emerging configurations will be. Certainly, sustainability emerges as a keyword in regional and municipal planning documents as well as in local people’s claims regarding environmental conflicts. Within this framework, this paper is based on research work drawn from a pragmatic notion of sustainability. It investigates how a medium-sized city in the Veneto region (Vicenza) is dealing with sustainability issues emerging from different tiers of governance. Urban transformation will be analysed from a multi-scalar perspective, taking into account the main decision-making processes concerning environmental issues (particularly the most significant measures and policy of containment of land consumption) as well as urban and regional plans and policies, and mega-projects which are significantly shaping urban transformation.