Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
38
A Blocked City
As we have seen, the three policies that I have examined have basically had discouraging
outcomes. In the last twenty years the left-wing parties that have governed Naples have
outspokenly pursued a model of cooperation between the public and private spheres and,
above all, have sought citizens’ involvement in public choice. The question is whether they
mastered the necessary resources. Considering the many negative factors that hold back the
city and frustrate entrepreneurial initiative, the question to be asked is whether it is possible
to escape the straightjacket of the starting conditions in pursuing urban policies. The role
played by the European Union and by the Italian government apart, a positive answer to this
question implies focusing on the role of the City government. So far, through strategic
planning, it has adopted a systemic approach to urban policy. It could perhaps achieve more
by implementing the urban zone device for, thus, it might foster the separation between the
long-term mission of city planning (whereby the city is seen as a single entity) and a short to
medium term strategy aimed at programming, managing and monitoring the achievement of
specific objectives. Paradoxically, the vision that looks at the city in all its complexity has to
face all the urban problems at once, and this ends up hindering rather than facilitating the task
of an overall urban renewal. The five quadrants in which Naples is divided by the Strategic
Plan — Western, Northern, Eastern, Historical Centre and Waterfront — reflect clearly the
vision of the City government, centred on the regeneration of the peripheral areas and the re-
launch of their competitiveness. Yet, despite the effort to systematize and redefine the frame
of the city, the starting priorities and the criteria and indicators selected to orient public
choice appear inadequate. Even where the city government started a programme of urban
regeneration — like in the Bagnoli district or in the Historical Centre — after many years the
results have been minimal. In both cases, the time schedule and the allocation of financial
resources for specific work seem to be dictated more by emergency considerations than by a
planned strategy with precise and targeted goals. Moreover, the choice to work
simultaneously in more than one direction raises the issue of substantial financial and
organizational costs. This situation is further exacerbated by a weak formal monitoring of the
work to be done. The limit of this approach lies in the fact that the City government
underestimates
the complexity of managing and implementing an overall urban renewal and
overestimates the organizational capacity of its administrative machine. A selective method
of intervention, based on measures aimed at given areas of the city and engaging its residents
in public choice, may be more effective. A sort of ‘microsurgery’ operations in the treatment
