ABSTRACT
In moving from Amsterdam to Milan, the context changes to a much larger country and a much bigger metropolitan area. Italy, like the Netherlands, is a unitary state and the role of the state has been substantial in all spheres of life. But there has been no tradition of consensus politics, of partnership between the major spheres of society or of delegation of much policy activity to technical experts working within government. In other words, Italy does not share the traditions of welfare state corporatism of much of North-West Europe. Instead, political networks and clientelist practices have played a strong role in shaping governance cultures and attitudes to local administrations. The account told in this chapter is of continual struggles to confront and contain older governance practices to enable coherent policy attention to the challenges of securing some degree of social justice and environmental quality, as a long-established city explodes into a sprawling, economically dynamic metropolis.
