Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
35
network around which the process of transformation of the town can be built. However, this
key point is that within this order not all actors have the same weight and power. The
resources and interests involved are quite different. For the business component, for example,
the main interest is to secure as much financial resources as possible; instead, interest-groups
such as trade unions and political parties aim mainly at enforcing consultation mechanisms in
order to protect the interests of the groups that they represent; the objective pursued by public
actors appears more complex, in so much as their task usually consists in reconciling limited
organizational, economic and financial resources with the need to mediate the demands of the
different actors involved; from the start, environmental groups tend to be mainly engaged in
trying to ensure environmental sustainability; finally, citizens as a collective subject turn to
one or to the other party involved according to their motivations and demands. This gives a
sense of the complexity of the network generated by the ties that connect the actors involved
in the renewal plan; even more complex is the task of the local administration in trying to
‘construct’ and manage a virtuous decision-making process. This is not to say that the actors
involved cannot establish cooperative relationships aimed at the advancement of the plan, but
this depends on the extent to which they are able to influence the dynamics of the different
demands elicited by the renewal plan, drawing on their material, ideological, political and
cultural resources, as well as on their actual participation and involvement. To sum up,
whether the network structure generated by the plan will provide a basis for its effective
enactment is an open question. Given that such a structure is both socially constructed and
contingent, it depends on how it is managed. The City government can play a key role in so
far as it is able both to mediate the different interests at stake and to enforce ‘rules of the
game’ to which all actors must abide to. A review of the implementation of the plan
highlighted, however, that also in this case the city administration was unable to mobilize
citizens’ participation and that the impact of the plan on the territory turned out to be
minimal.
In spite of so many programmes, a real process of recovery of the historical centre has
never taken off. Unsurprisingly, UNESCO has repeatedly reprimanded the City Council for
the bad condition in which the historical centre still is. Moreover, the various local actors
involved in their implementation lacked the capacity to coordinate and negotiate among
themselves. Let us now look at the Urban Free Zone which, unlike the two policies examined
above, requires constant mobilization.
