Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
24
serious obstacles. In the discussion that follows I will discuss why and how this happens,
looking in detail to the situation on the ground. The discussion will develop as follows.
A first point that deserves attention concerns the recent advancement occurred in the
field of urban policies, namely the emphasis on planning and on an integrated strategy that
includes tools for social inclusion and economic growth. From a theoretical perspective, the
literature on this issue brings out the potential of these tools, in the sense that they seem to
provide a way to address social and economic problems (Lascoumes and Le Galès 2007,
Hodd 1986, Linder and Peters 1989, Bifulco and Leonardis 1997). More attention, however,
needs to be paid both to the problematic of implementation process and to the adaptation of
these tools to specific contexts
(Burroni, Crouch and Keune 2005;
Parés, Martí-Costa and
Bonet-Martí 2012). Only in this way the benefits that the adoption of urban policies can bring
to citizenship can be fully appreciated. I will then offer a systematic exploration of these
aspects, looking at the aforementioned theoretical issues in the light of the fact that while
Naples shares with many other large cities in the world problems and development
opportunities, it also has distinctive characteristics that need to be taken into account.
Global Cities in Competition: The Role of Urban Policies
In the light of the progress made in the field of urban studies, the first aspect that needs to be
considered concerns the strength of the cities in the processes of economic and international
exchange. Over the last few years, the issue of governance has gained growing attention in
the theoretical framework of urban studies, and sharp analytical differences have arisen.
Three main approaches can be identified: 1) one focuses on the changes that have occurred in
the relationship between the national, regional and local governments; 2) a second one
focuses on the growth of the role played by the European Union in the policies and decision-
making of the national states; 3) a third one focuses on the process of globalization (Le Galès
2002, Robinson 2007, Sassen 2008). There is a strong interdependence between these three
lines of analysis, but what is relevant are the changes in the spatial scale and the influence
and the impact that these changes have on the economic processes. As a consequence of the
erosion, or transformation, of state intervention, there has been a reorganization in the central
and local political and administrative apparatuses (Cerase 2006). In some cases, this
reorganization has produced competition between such apparatuses; in others, it has
generated cooperation in the attempt to solve shared problems. Some cases have been marked
by the shift from urban
managerialism
to urban
enterpreneurialism
, while, at the opposite
