ABSTRACT
The empirical studies carried out have highlighted the territorial patterns that characterise the Italian urban system. The multi-centred nature of numerous metropolitan systems makes it increasingly necessary to consider the problem of ‘governing’ them as a question of the choice of instruments appropriate to the needs of cooperation and co-ordination between the various urban nodes that make up these systems. Many European countries have been making an effort to produce coherent visions of their national spatial structure, following original paths strongly influenced by local planning traditions. In Italy, despite die traditional state intervention in the economy, there has been a lack of government reflection on the dynamics of territorial development and on the possible measures to direct them towards forms of re-equilibrium. In the cases where the medium-sized cities of an urban system show conditions of particular fragility serious consideration must be given to the adoption of alternative instruments to the traditionally ineffective ones of emergency intervention.
