ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a complex urbanized Italy highlighting several clues of post-metropolitan features. It provides macro and synthetic representations, through a multivariate analysis of selected sets of variables. The crisis of the Fordist phase and the well-known emergence of Marshallian 'industrial districts' triggered a new urbanization phase, particularly in some regions marked by a significant population diffusion. The metropolitan development does not seem to erase the traditional old dense city, which is still one of the most widespread Italian urban phenomenologies. Italy has been, during its long urban history, a densely urbanized territory, with many large, medium and small cities, each with their peculiar urbanity. Metropolitan and large urban polarities mostly refer to the new socioeconomic and physical consequences of globalization. Globalization, with the crisis of traditional industrial districts and the new roles of networked urban economies, changed urbanization patterns.
