Italy: The Metropolitan Cities in the context of urban-rural relations

Although the Italian Constitution recognized Metropolitan Cities (città metropolitan) since the 2001 reform as “autonomous entities having their own statutes, powers and functions in accordance with the principles laid down in the Constitution” (Article 114), it took until 2015 that they were established through the national Ordinary Law No. 56/2014 (the so-called “Delrio Law”). They form second-tier local entities between municipalities and regions and are meant to tackle the challenges of increasing urbanization more effectively. As such, the idea of special entities for metropolitan governance was debated as early as the 1950s in Italy, yet it took six more decades to finally establish them. Municipal, provincial and regional vetoes impeded previous legislative efforts leading to what eventually was a top-down implementation by the national legislature that simply replaced provinces with large urban centers with Metropolitan Cities and delimitated their areas to the same provincial territory. This presentation will locate the Metropolitan Cities in the Italian local government structure and focus on the challenges arising from the top-down implementation. This has lead, for example, to Metropolitan Cities that in some cases include remote rural municipalities in their territories, and in others do not even entirely cover the functional urban area.