Regional spatial planning for implementing the European Green Deal: a new method of assessment applied to the metropolitan area of Florence

ABSTRACT

The European Green Deal (EGD) is the most ambitious current challenge for regions and cities of the EU member states. While the role of regional spatial planning in addressing sustainable development and climate change mitigation has been widely investigated, an analysis of its ability to drive the green transition is still missing. The authors propose a new method to analyse how current regional plans meet EGD challenges and apply it to the case of the metropolitan area of Florence. The analysis reveals that, although plans cover EGD issues, there is still a need for more integrated tools and greater effective governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Green Deal Going Local
• ecological transition
• sustainable development goals
• transformative approach
• Tuscany

Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor in chief of this journal prof. Vincent Nadin for their precious comments. The authors also thank prof. Lorenzo De Sio for his valuable remarks. The authors acknowledge support from the grant 1885/2022 - RTDPUBBL_RICATEN2 awarded by the Research Committee of the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Attributions

This paper is the result of a joint reflection by the authors. Section 1, 2, 5, 7, 8 was written by both the authors; Section 3 and 6.2 by Elena Tarsi; Section 4 and 6.1 by Maria Rita Gisotti.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. To calculate the mean score for each policy area across the three elements of the plan, we applied the following (S1+S2+S3)/3.

2. To calculate the median score for each policy area across the three elements of the plan (following Bryman, 2012), we placed the three results in ascending order and identified the value coded for the median result (the one in the middle).

3. National Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, art. 145.

4. It is important to note that the metropolitan area of Florence is defined quite differently in the PIT and PSM. The ‘Firenze-Prato-Pistoia’ area of the PIT includes the real ‘metropolis’ of central Tuscany, which is the Region’s economic heart and produces about half of its GDP. This metropolitan area began taking form in the 1960s, with a series of planning acts. Whereas the metropolitan area defined by the PSM coincides with the territory under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan City of Florence, which is based on historical and not modern geography. This conflict is present throughout Italy, as metropolitan cities have been created with a certain ‘levity’ that makes them coincide with the jurisdictions of pre-existing provinces (De Luca, 2016). To overcome the problem of its jurisdiction not including a sizable part of the ‘functional metropolis’ that encompasses Prato and Pistoia, the Metropolitan City included this area in the definition of the ‘Visions’ to be addressed in the PSM.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Dipartimento di Architettura, Università degli Studi di Firenze [1885/2022 RTDPUBBL_RICATEN2].