Italy's Cities - National Urban Policies and a new Leading Role of Southern Italy's Urban Areas and Metropolitan Areas

Following 1861's unification and the industrialisation process characterizingthe second half of the 20th century, Italy has experienced a long-run process ofurbanization affecting both population and economic system. Such a process hashad a different evolution in the North and in the South of Italy, not only in thelong run, but also in the first decade of the 21st century - when many Southern cities have lost their attraction towards population and businesses. Furthermore,current economic crisis and the failure of national and local public budget havelead to a dramatic decrease in expenses for investments and a weakening of urbanwelfare, which has to cope with tough challenges, such as population ageingand the shortage of services combining family and job, that contributes toworsen women's exclusion from working-age population.The infrastructural gap affecting Southern cities is progressively accompaniedby the risk of a significant decrease in the quality of living and working environment,particularly in big urban areas, such as Naples, which results also in adrain of the most skilled young people.Within such a framework, it is necessary to relaunch a national policy forcities, developing its strategies according to the specific critical points and opportunitiescharacterizing Southern Italy's urban areas.For this reason, it is necessary a National Action Plan which, taking intoconsideration the relaunch of cities' leading role, provides for a variety of measures- the completion of institutional reforms for local and metropolitan areas'autonomies; the recovery of infrastructural investments; the implementation ofintegrated policies for urban renewal within European planning strategies 2014-2020 and their coordination with tax relief incentive measures aimed at fosteringemployment; the conversion into new welfare models providing for a public offerrequalification as well as an effective implementation of the new principlesof subsidiarity and integration between public and private; close programme attention,at national level, for Naples, which is increasingly at risk of a completesocial and economic collapse.