Strategic Planning for Contemporary Urban Regions

City of Cities: A Project for Milan

Alessandro Balducci, Valeria Fedeli, Gabriele Pasqui

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317049562
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is an account of how the Milan Provincial Administration and a team of researchers from Milan Polytechnic worked together to develop a new 'Strategic Plan' for Milan's urban region. Informed by innovative conceptions of both how to understand cities in the contemporary world, and engage in strategic planning work, this experience has already attracted considerable international attention. The authors now consolidate their contribution into a comprehensive account which continually relates theory and practice Examining the Milan Plan in detail, the book explains the profound transformations which put great pressure on the traditional descriptive tools so planners must engage in the production of new ones. It also proposes that these transformations affect the way in which urban policies and planning processes are designed. The project offers insights into - and new directions for - planning theory more generally, while at the same time testing this powerful and innovative research hypothesis in an important European city empirical study. In detailing the results of this project, this book proposes useful ground-breaking approaches to planning for similar urban regions.

Chapter 0.1
The process of planning the City of Cities Strategic Project

Ida Castelnuovo, Marianna Giraudi

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the process by which the City of Cities Strategic Project was planned and implemented and to provide useful references for an understanding of the chapters in this book which follow.

We have decided to divide the process into four parts:

- a preliminary phase in which the process was conceived and the demand for planning was defined by means of interaction between the Province of Milan, the originator of the initiative and the working group from the Department of Architecture and Planning (DiAP) at the Polytechnic of Milan;
- the first stage, consisting mainly of acquiring knowledge, analysis and designing the process, in which after the official appointment was made to implement the Strategic Project, the main features of the interpretation of the context of the Milan urban region were defined along with the key words around which the objectives and actions were based and the operational design of the different activities to be performed;
- a second operational stage in which the different operations of the Strategic Project were actually started and a variety of events and products are constructed by means of a strongly interactive process;
- a third stage in which the activities started in the previous stage are brought to completion and occasions for critical reflection on the work performed are organised.

We have tried to mention the most important parts of each of these stages (see table 0.1 and fig.0.1), the results they produced and some of the crucial points that are discussed in-depth in the chapters that follow.

0.1.1 The preliminary phase: conception and definition of the “demand” for planning

January 2005 – May 2005

The City of Cities Strategic Project was launched when the Centre Left executive government of the Province of Milan, elected in the Spring of 2004, granted specific powers in relation to it. The powers were conferred on Daniela Gasparini, a former Mayor of the important municipality of Cinisello Balsamo in the Milan hinterland, who had already worked with many members of the DiAP working group in the past on the subject of inter-municipal strategic planning. As an executive councillor Gasparini made a proposal to Alessandro Balducci, who was then Director of the DiAP, to explore and outline the conditions and characteristics of a possible strategic planning process for the Milan area.

In January 2005, this proposal became official with the appointment of the DiAP and the work was performed by a working group led by Alessandro Balducci. The appointment, which lasted just a few months, was considered an exercise in defining the demand for strategic planning and it was performed by means of detailed analysis carried out by the DiAP working group and frequent interaction with the provincial administration and with Daniela Gasparini in particular.

An iterative path of action then began between study and operational verification and between the university and the province, designed to define the possibilities and limitations of a strategic planning initiative for the Milan context. This was performed, amongst other things, on the basis of a reconstruction of the problems and difficulties which had characterised the governance processes of this context in the past.

The results of the exploration activity were presented in three dossiers:

- the first dossier, Strategic planning, proposed new images for a planning perspective of the Province of Milan, with a view to a more overall interpretation of the processes in progress in the urban region. The city of cities idea to be used in the later stages of the project was first presented in this dossier to indicate the interpretation of the geographical area the Strategic Project was based on;
- the second dossier, Metropolitan governance and institutional networks, examined metropolitan governance and government processes in the Milan area, performed partly by making comparisons with other European contexts. It also underlined the difficulties and fragility of an institutionally based solution for treating the metropolitan type problems of the area;
- the third dossier, The process of construction of the Province of Monza and Brianza, addressed a specific question considered a priority by the provincial administration at that time. It concerned the problems and opportunities relating to the creation of a new province from the Province of Milan.

In May 2005 a brief report, The Province of Milan: a strategic plan for the Milan urban region, was released which illustrated the most important parts of the work produced in the three explorative dossiers.

The orientations that the project was to maintain for the whole of its life emerged from this feasibility study. The principal features of the strategic planning process that was about to commence took shape as an indirect product of this exploratory stage. They were features that were to be reaffirmed throughout the project. An outline of the work identifies the three areas of action of the Strategic Project:

- the construction of images and scenarios, representations of the Milan urban region which can be used to: furnish important interpretations of its configuration; identify specificities and networks of relationships; provide policy frameworks; and not least to draw up a vision of the future and therefore to generate actions;
- the definition and implementation of actions consisting of policies, projects and operational proposals that are feasible and concrete. These may include support for projects already approved and in progress, but revised from a “strategic” perspective;
- the start up of new projects : new initiatives that the province controls directly and on which action is taken to construct coalitions, by means of innovative projects on development, social and environmental quality and institutional capabilities and governance.

The working style of the Strategic Project was developed in this preliminary phase, considered not as the formulation of a planning document, but as a process, a continuous activity, which is not centred around one single product, but which gives rise to a variety of products, which indicate the different stages of the process and are in part redefined by it.

0.1.2 The first stage: the formulation of the guiding principles and the design of the planning process

June 2005 – February 2006

The City of Cities Strategic Project was officially launched when the appointment was actually made for the implementation of a Strategic Project for the Milan urban region.

A phase of intense project planning activity designed to define the guiding principles and actions of the Strategic Project commenced in the months following the start-up of the initiative. The working group at the DiAP was expanded with the dual objective of including new expertise and increasing the number of persons available for the project.

The main activities in this stage were as follows:

- the research and creation of an initial conceptual framework for the project, by preparing a document to open the process to be presented as a “manifesto” to be discussed and considered with a large variety of actors and partners. It was in this stage that some of the innovative principles proposed for the Strategic Project were sharply defined: the interpretation of Milan as a large urban region, being both a city of cities and a city of populations (see chapter 3.2); and also the idea of habitability (see chapter 2.2);
- the start of interaction with a large variety of people: the provincial administration, municipalities, labour and management representatives, academics and the world of culture and the arts. The “community” of the Strategic Project was formed in this stage which was to increase as time went on to constitute one of the main assets of the process;
- the definition of the governance of the project. The governance was quite complex consisting of leadership by Daniela Gasparini, the executive councillor responsible for the strategic plan, assisted by a small staff within her Department; a technical working group operating in the Polytechnic of Milan under the leadership of Alessandro Balducci; two committees (a steering committee open to other executive councillors of the province and the planning office composed of senior managers of the various Departments of the province). An international Advisory Board was created, with the participation of scholars in planning and architecture, officers in international institutions and practitioners (Louis Albrecht, Roberto Camagni, Klaus Kunzmann, Patrick Le Galès, Mario Pezzini, Marco Vitale). Meetings were also arranged at this stage with a forum of social partners (trade unions, employers associations, environmentalist associations, etc.) which was specially formed;
- the formulation of a specific communication strategy. A variety of communication tools were introduced to the process in this stage: the creation of materials of different types and a website; the organisation of events, both specially for the project and linked to other initiatives, targeted at very different audiences.

The conceptual framework and the working style of the Strategic Project were therefore defined in the first stage based on a continuous and daily practice of interaction and redesign.

The document, A city of cities. A strategic plan for the Milan urban region, was published in January 2006. It gave an account of the work performed in the first stage and also constituted the start of the various lines of work that were planned. The document was intended as material for discussion. It presented a global vision of the Milan area, the working methodology proposed and the guiding principles of the Strategic Project and can be considered as the true cultural manifesto of the process that was in progress. The strategic document was presented at an international convention held in February 2006, which officially ended the first stage.

0.1.3 The second stage: workshops, projects, events

March 2006 – July 2007

The different lines of action planned and designed in the previous stages took shape in the second stage which started in March 2006. The main lines of action and support activities performed in this very intense phase of the process are described below.

The first competition

The most important activity in the second stage of the Strategic Project was the organisation of the first competition, which in some respects was based on the IBA Emscher Park initiative. The City of Cities competition for ideas and best practices for habitability, launched in February 2006 at the convention in which the strategic document was presented was the most innovative tool deployed in the Strategic Project. The objective was to call upon Milan society to interpret the concept of habitability in practical terms and to either propose existing projects or to plan new ones.

The competition took place in two parts, a preliminary stage and a second stage for the definition of the projects. Intense consultation activity then commenced, managed entirely by the DiAP groups. Meetings were organised with a vast range of protagonists, where the aim was to discuss the start of the competition and the broader process of the Strategic Project in local communities with a particular focus on the theme of habitability. The goal in this stage was to communicate the competition, its objectives and how it functions. It required the creation of tools to advertise the initiative which, while it did not have a large budget (a prize of 22.000 euro was awarded to the winners to develop or communicate the projects rather than to implement them), was designed to attract a large and very varied number of participants. The preliminary stage ended on 31^st May 2006 having attracted 410 proposals, a success which none of those involved expected. In addition to being numerous, the proposals demonstrated that the theme of habitability was able to attract project ideas from many different parts, involving the whole of the Milan urban region.

In the second stage, in which the proposals presented were defined, efforts were concentrated on creating tools by which the broad range of participants could be reached to establish a stable and continuous dialogue with them. A support centre was therefore opened, located at the Polytechnic of Milan, with the objective of developing and redefining the projects in close co-operation with the proponents and to thereby create a network of relationships between the various protagonists and circulate the projects in the Milan urban region. At the end of this stage 259 projects had been presented consisting of 94 best practices and 165 project ideas.

Intense activity then commenced to examine the material presented. The assessment commission started its work in 2006 consisting of nine judges (including important figures from the world of culture, mainly from Milan: Gae Aulenti, architect, as the President; Laura Balbo and Guido Martinotti, sociologists; Marina Spada, film-maker; Bruno Ermolli and Gianni Giorgi, managers; John Foot, historian; Klaus Kunzmann, planner; Davide Rampello, President of the Triennale of Milan) who were required to select ten winners, consisting of five best practices and five project ideas. The assessment process was wide ranging and meticulous. In consideration of the quality and quantity of the proposals, it was decided to increase the number of winners from ten to forty two. Moreover, in order to underline the interest aroused by this initiative, the commission decided to produce a report containing observations made on the proposals and more generally on the operations set in motion by the competition, with recommendations for possible, and necessary, future developments. The winners were announced on 5^th March 2007 at the “Festival of the Projects” held at the headquarters of the Province of Milan where the success of the City of Cities competition was celebrated with the participation of hundreds of people.

The “Atlante”

Another line of work was designed to acknowledge and present the Strategic Projects generated by the provincial administration. It took the form of a catalogue of the habitability projects for the Province of Milan, a tool that would communicate the ability of the provincial administration to generate innovation on the themes of habitability to a wide range of people and partners. It is a tool which gave people the chance to “meet” the province, to disseminate ideas and projects and to build a compendium of projects that might grow over the years as contributions are made. The challenge is therefore not just to build a knowledge base with which to communicate the contents of the project activities performed by the various Departments of the province, but also, and primarily, to illustrate the connections between the projects and the actors in order to amplify their effect in the province.

The greatest effort made in this stage was to involve and glean information from the large network of people working within the provincial administration on habitability projects and policies in different Departments and areas. The work of building the “Atlante” therefore consisted of two types of activity. One was the collection of the materials from all possible sources and the presentation of the projects identified and the other consisted of continuous interaction between people inside and outside the provincial administration by means of various types of activity (...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Charts and Graphs
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• 0 The Context and the Demand for Strategic Planning
• 0.1 The process of planning the City of Cities Strategic Project
• 1.1 Planning the Changing City
• 1.2 Data and images
• 2.1 The Changing Urban Agenda
• 2.2 Keywords: Habitability
• 3.1 About “Governance” in Urban Regions: When Territory, Sovereignty and Citizenship do not match
• 3.2 Keywords: City of Cities / [City of] Populations
• 4.1 New Planning Approaches/ Challenges for Urban and Territorial Planning in Contemporary Cities
• 4.2 The City of Cities Competitions and the Strategic Project
• 4.3 Drawing and Dialogue: Meaning and Form of the Instruments Used to Communicate the City of Cities Strategic Project
• 5.1 Planning, Institutions, Knowledge: Lessons from an Experimental Practice
• Bibliography
• Index