Milan, the Unthinking Metropolis

Abstract

Path-dependent development together with entrepreneurial capacities and clustering of activities gave Milan a new role as one of the main global centres in media, design and fashion industries. The good fortunes of the city on the economic side have not yet been accompanied by a satisfactory approach in the territorial government and administration. As the city has manifested a patent inability of developing a good ‘metropolitan’ government, sprawling outside its limits in an apparently uncontrolled way and congesting its centre with cars and polluting fumes, it will be a challenge to see whether it will also be able into a new European metropolis.

Notes

Elena dell'Agnese is author of the first five sections, and Valentina Anzoise of the following two sections. Conclusions have been drawn by the authors together.

Istat 2009. Available at http://demo.istat.it/pop2009/index.html.

The idea of a northern Italian megalopolis has been popularized as a geographical reality by Eugenio Turri at the beginning of the 2000; but, in the plain of the Po river, the existence of a system of cities so strictly tied up to evoke the image of a megalopolis has been visualized since the end of the 1970s, by Giacomo Corna-Pellegrini (1977) and Jean Gottmann (1978). The northern Italian megalopolis represents the largest urban constellation in Europe, a part from the Northern Range and, already in Gottmann's times, it satisfied the criterion of a minimum population of 25 million inhabitants (Gottmann, 1978).

Around the metropolitan area, ‘increased use of private transport and a capillary network of road infrastructures has moved the front line of urban growth further and further out from the heart of the metropolis to reach areas such as the Alpine foothill belt in the North and agricultural areas to the South on the Po Valley plain, which were once completely on the margins of urban life’ (Balducci, 2003:67).

Law No. 146, 11 June 2004, ‘Istituzione della provincia di Monza e della Brianza’.

Associazione Interessi Metropolitani: http://www.aim.milano.it; Milano Metropoli: http://www.milanonet.it

‘Prosperous but Unloved Milan’ is the title of an article published in The Economist, 25 January 2001.

Data are referred to the former Province of Milan, now divided between the Province of Milan and the newly created Province of Monza-Brianza (Ambiente Italia 2008).

On the association website (www.milanomet.it), you can read that Milano Metropoli is the website devoted to the Milanese region – the region is described variously as a metropolitan area, city-region and greater Milan.

Available at http://www.cittadicitta.it/home.htm

The title of this paragraph was inspired by thesis discussed in ‘L'invention des villes dwables’, fourth chapter of Veron (2006).

Source: Ecosistema Europa 2007. Available at http://www.a21italy.it/upload/dl/ECOURB-UE07.pdf

The Aalborg Charter Commitments Document is available for signature by local governments on this website: http://www.aalborgplus10.dk

Source: Legambiente. Available at http://www.lamiaaria.it/l%27aria-di-ieri/pm10-ti-tengo-d%27occhio.aspx?id=lombardia

Information on Local Agenda 21 can be found in UNCED (1993).

The survey is part of a wider project named Osservatorio Marketing Territoriale. Un'analisi del posizionamento del Comune di Milano, della sua Area Metropolitana e della Regione Urbana (2009–2011). In the survey on the student sample for the statement ‘Milan is a city concerned about sustainability’, the Italian students' average value is: 5.59 for those who have already been to Milan, and 5.37 for those who have not, while it is 6.00 for the foreigners who have already been to and 5.59 for those who have not.

 For the statement ‘Milan's environmental quality is excellent’, the average value is even less encouraging: 4.86 for the Italians who have already been to Milan, and 4.53 for those who have not, while it is 6.20 for the foreigners who have already been and 5.76 for those who have not.

For further information on the project see http://comparaverde.it

In Italy, the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) is the main supplier of official statistical information. It collects and produces information on Italian economy and society and makes it available for study and decision-making purpose. Every year it publishes a report of environmental statistics that includes trends in tourism and transports and their impacts. Available at http://www.istat.it/dati/catalogo/20091130_00/ann_09_11statistich_%20ambientali09.pdf

Speech made in September 2009, in Tokyo, by Andrea Radic, who took part in the collective sessions of the Italy–Japan Business Group and showed the major points and philosophy of Expo 2015. Available at http://www.expo2015.org/eng/Expo-2015-at-Tokio.htm

Available at http://www.expo2015.org

The Committee against the Expo has opened a website (www.noexpo.it) and a Facebook Group with more than one 1300 members (May 2010). Available at http://www.facebook.com/noexpo

The previous idea, presented to the BIE, was to reopen a part of the medieval and Renaissance inland waterways (namely the Navigli, the canals of Milan). The Via d'Acqua (or Waterway Itinerary) was conceived to construct a true ‘Water and Nutrition Didactic Park’ following the Expo. ‘A system of green areas of extraordinary dimensions (approximately 800 hectares) will be created along an itinerary of approximately 20 km. Citizens will be able to travel this distance on foot, by bicycle, with low-consumption vehicles, or on horseback (in some stretches of the green areas), or even by boats along the navigable Naviglio Grande. This territorial park, which will occupy the entire western part of the city, will feature water as its leitmotif, as it will be present along the entire route in various forms: canals, troughs, springs, water bodies, quarries, rice paddies, etc.’ (Executive Summary, Chapter 21, 122). Available at http://www.expo2015.org/uploaded_files/attachments/201002221266832220/chapter_21_legacy.pdf

The Via di Terra (or Land Itinerary) was firstly conceived as ‘a set of one main itinerary and four secondary (thematic) itineraries that will basically be offshoots of the first […]. The “Via di Terra” will represent a permanent tourist attraction of the city, thanks to the quality of the landscape requalification interventions and its accessibility’ (Executive Summary, chapter 21, 123). Available at http://www.milanoexpo2015.net/ita/dossier_di_candidatura.htm