Turin: the Vain Search for Gargantua

Maurizio Maggi, Stefano Piperno TURIN: THE VAIN SEARCH FOR GARGANTUA W.P. 124/1999 Working paper n. 124, giugno 1999 IRES PIEMONTE ISTITUTO DI RICERCHE ECONOMICO-SOCIALI DEL PIEMONTE L’I RES PIEMONTE è un istituto di ricerca che svolge la sua attività d’indagine in campo socioeconomico e territoriale, fornendo un supporto all’azione di programmazione della Regione Piemonte e delle altre istituzioni ed enti locali piemontesi. Costituito nel 1958 su iniziativa della Provincia e del Comune di Torino con la partecipa- zione di altri enti pubblici e privati, l’IRES ha visto successivamente l’adesione di tutte le Province piemontesi; dal 1991 l’Istituto è un ente strumentale della Regione Piemonte. Giuridicamente l’IRES è configurato come ente pubblico regionale dotato di autonomia fun- zionale disciplinato dalla legge regionale n. 43 del 3 settembre 1991. Costituiscono oggetto dell’attività dell’Istituto: – la relazione annuale sull’andamento socioeconomico e territoriale della regione; – l’osservazione, la documentazione e l’analisi delle principali grandezze socioeconomiche e territoriali del Piemonte; – rassegne congiunturali sull’economia regionale; – ricerche e analisi per il piano regionale di sviluppo; – ricerche di settore per conto della Regione e di altri enti. © 1999 IRES – Istituto di Ricerche Economico-Sociali del Piemonte via Nizza 18 10125 Torino Tel. 011.66.66.411, fax 011.66.96.012 Si autorizza la riproduzione, la diffusione e l’utilizzazione del contenuto del volume con la citazione della fonte. Working paper n. 124, 1999 Contents TURIN: THE VAIN SEARCH FOR GARGANTUA Introduction 5 1. Institutions and economic development in the Turin metropolitan area 7 1.1 Socio-economic trends 7 1.2 Institutional trends 15 3 2. The development of the main networked metropolitan services 22 2.1 The aqueduct service: municipal concerns, private firms, communal management 22 2.2 Effluent water softening services 23 2.3 Other services 24 2.4 Privatisations in progress 25 3. In search of political leadership 27 Conclusions 31 References 35 Questo lavoro costituisce il primo contributo dell'IRES Piemonte per un programma di ricerca comparata sulle dinamiche istituzionali nelle regioni urbane in Europa, iniziato nel 1996 e svolto attraverso una rete di istituzioni di ricerca in Francia, Inghilterra, Germania e Olanda. Sono state analizzate, oltre a quella di Torino, le regioni urbane di Bologna, Lione, Bordeaux, Rotterdam, Stoccarda, Manchester, e del bacino lemanico. Il Laboratoire de recherches Interdisciplinai- res Ville, Espace et Societé de l'Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'Etat di Lione è stato il capofila del programma di ricerca finanziato dalla Agence Rhône- Alpes pur les Sciences Sociales et Humaines. La versione definitiva di questo lavoro è contenuta nel rapporto finale della ricerca recentemente pubblicato in Fran- cia (B. Jouve, C. Lefèvre, a cura di, Villes, Métropoles. Les nouveaux territoires du politique. Paris: Economica, 1999). Working paper n. 124, 1999 Turin: the vain search for Gargantua Maurizio Maggi* Stefano Piperno* erased from the political agenda Introduction of the principal local institutions. The decision to use the case of Tu- Vice versa, it may be useful to at- rin in a comparative study of me- tempt a parallel reconstruction of tropolitan governments in Europe the theoretical and institutional might appear an anomalous one. debate on the prospects of metro- More than anywhere else in Italy, politan governance and the initia- the problem of governing the Tu- tives of the principal wide area rin urban area has, de facto, been service policies to answer some of * Istittuto di Ricerche Economico-Sociali del Piemonte - Turin. E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Working paper n. 124, 1999 the questions posed by the overall mal general metropolitan govern- research project. ment structure? The first of these questions This report is split into four concerns the emergence of a mo- parts. The first sketches an extre- del of governance to replace tra- mely schematic outline of the pa- ditional government. The fact rallel institutional and socio-eco- that the term ‘governance’ is so nomic development of the area hard to translate into Italian gives over the last thirty years. The fact some idea of the difficulty which is that Turin as a city is a symbol this new paradigm is meeting he- of the post-war Italian economic re in Italy, although awareness of miracle and national urbanisa- this need is now precisely felt in tion, just as it has since become a the Turin area. The concept of typical case of deindustrialisation, metropolitan governance implies in which new models of urban de- governing a metropolitan area velopment have begun to emerge without a formal local govern- and the need for institutional ment organisation. It is thus pos- change is sharply felt. sible to verify whether a model of The second part describes how this type, albeit partial and em- the principal networked services 6 bryonic, has emerged in the Tu- – the ones, that is, which ideally rin area. require a wide area institutional The second question concerns organisation – are run, verifying the development of the system of the advantages and disadvantages intergovernmental relations in of the functional models curren- Piedmont. Relations between the tly being adopted. various levels of government have The framework which emerges a specific regional dimension: is still unclear. The fact is that lo- they vary, that is, from one part of cal elites’ awareness of the pro- the country to another according blems of urban governance to existing socio-economic and within the new context of inter- politico-institutional conditions. national competition and their The fact that metropolitan gover- capacity to come up with strate- nance has developed one way in gic new projects are still conspi- Turin and another in Bologna cuous by their absence. In the confirms this hypothesis1. third part of the report, we seek The third question is about in- to understand why. stitutional innovation. It asks: is The fourth and final part ad- innovation possible without a for- dresses the basic question of 1 It is interesting to note that this is the second time that the two cities have been com- pared in an international comparative research project (cf. Euricur, 1996). Working paper n. 124, 1999 Figure 1 Administrative borders of the Turin metropolitan area Communes comprised in the delimitation of 1972 Communes comprised in the delimitation of 1991 CHIVASSO CASELLE T.SE VENARIA COLLEGNO RIVOLI TORINO GRUGLIASCO CHIERI PIOSSASCO 7 CARMAGNOLA whether Turin needs a new model this one simple question. Geo- of urban government or not. Or, graphers, sociologists, economists alternatively, are minor correc- and urban planners have argued tions to the policies in progress all over what criteria to use to delimit that is needed? the plausible boundaries of the area without ever coming to any unanimous conclusion. For our 1. Institutions purposes, we follow the only exi- and economic development sting administrative delimitation in the Turin metropolitan area (fig. 1), which dates from 19722, 1.1 Socio-economic trends and which comprises 52 of Turin’s What exactly is the Turin me- neighbouring ‘comuni’, or com- tropolitan area? It would take a munes, in two concentric circles. whole report on its own to answer The demographic and econo- 2 An area comprising the commune of Turin and another 52 communes on the basis of DPGR No. 719 of 1972 issued by the Piedmontese Regional Authority. Working paper n. 124, 1999 mic evolution of Turin over the last thirty years reflects some of the typical phases in urban development: urbanisation, suburbanisation, deurbanisation and reurbanisation. “In the urbanisation phase, population and economic activity concentrates in urban centres. In the suburbanisation phase the growth of the suburbs out- strips that of the city centre and, eventually, there is a shift of population and jobs to the suburbs. In the deurbanisation phase the wider conurbation as a whole loses population, smal- ler urban areas grow and a mo- 8 re decentralised urban system develops. In the reurbanisation phase, cities which have been losing population begin to grow again” (Commission of the Eu- ropean Communities, 1992). In the seventies (in some cases even earlier), the population of the central city of the metropolitan area began to decline, while the - Mela, 1997). 1995 data see: Conforti - Davico . (For growth of that of the inner urban rings also began to dwindle. At the same time, the population of the external rings and often also of the periurban agricultural belts has in- No. Population Population Population Population Growth Growth Growth creased, with a consequent diffu- communes 1995 % 1991 % 1981 % 1971 % ’71-’81 ’81-’91 ’91-’95 sion of residential settlement and Population Census Data Population production activities. Since this is not the place to address the causes of the phenomenon – which stem from transformations in urban Table 1 Population patterns in the Turin metropolitan area (1971-1995) 1 Population patterns in the Turin Table area ‘72Total Istat, Source: 53 1,705,518 92 1,731,039 93 1,843,993 94 1,802,723 94 2.3 -6.1 -1.5 Turin ringFirst Second ring ringThird 109Total 23 29 1 1,845,212 56 100 523,445 258,967 923,106 1,865,233 28 100 14 50 139,694 1,968,580 526,310 242,222 100 962,507 8 28 13 1,913,196 52 100 134,194 1,117,154 494,922 231,917 57 7 25 12 2.9 1,167,968 124,587 446,885 187,870 61 -5.2 23 6 10 -1.1 -4.4 10.7 23.4 110,473 -15.9 6 6.4 4.5 -4.1 12.8 -0.5 6.9 11.4 4.1 Working paper n.

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