ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the characteristic of the Italian urban governance, from both the conceptual and the empirical point of view with the aim of showing its limitations and opportunities. The plot of the relationships among the processes of political and institutional decentralisation, the redefinition of the relationships between the State, the local authorities, and the urban and spatial policies may be identified by focusing on the forms and the modality of cities' government, beginning with the identification of the 'new' instruments of public policies. The framework of Italian urban governance has also been influenced by the role played by the European Union (EU). Initiatives and community programmes have indeed spread in the Italian practices the 'core principles' and the current European urban policy's mainstream. In Italy strategic planning was established in the mid-1990s, relatively late compared with other European countries.
