Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The legislator, appointing the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Urban Policy
(art. 12Bis law 134/2012), wanted to overcome a disjointed and limited man-
agement of urban areas problems
5
. The CIPU is an important institutional inno-
vation since it recognizes that cities are central to economic development, social
inclusion and territorial cohesion.
It tries to fill the gap between the importance of cities and the lack of appro-
priate city measures identified by the national government.
The CIPU has two essential objectives:
• to have a role in coordinating important national intervention actions and be a
reference point for local government whose representatives are also part of the
Committee;
• to set the Urban Agenda, in accordance with the one suggested by the European
Commission concerning the cohesion policy 2014/2020. Annual programming
and budget reports will periodically update this agenda.
The Urban Agenda is a policy document that the majority of the European
countries have already established, with the indication of the priorities and coor-
dinated actions at different levels of the Government. Moreover, the agenda fosters
sustainable and inclusive investments to strengthen the role of the cities. Metro-
politan cities will have a leading role in the new planning of structural funds 2014/
2020. A new national operational program specific for Metropolitan cities will be
proposed because within the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is
estimated that at least 5 % of allocated national resources should be assigned to
Integrated Actions for a sustainable urban development.
CIPU took office on January 2013. The Ministry for territorial cohesion, during
the second meeting presented the document ''Priority methods and contents con-
cerning Urban Agenda'' in which the bases, the methodology, the contents, the
priorities to be followed for the Urban Agenda were indicated. The text was
written taking into account the different urban dimensions (metropolitan areas,
large and medium size cities and systems of municipalities) and specific issues
present in Southern Italy and in the ''In-land Areas''. The text underlines the
strength, the weakness and the operational priorities of urban systems.
The Urban Agenda contains suggestions to integrate different levels of man-
agement, sectorial policies and financial resources coming from the ordinary
budget or the European Community funds (CIPU
2013
). The Urban Agenda
should anticipate more appropriate actions, means and adequate places to solve
disparities and problems, to find possible solutions, to overcome and to contrast
ordinary and extraordinary policies that, up to now, have replaced the lack of
ordinary policies on the cities.
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In 1987 was established the Ministry for Urban Areas, which operated until 1993, and the
Department for Urban Areas at the Presidency of the Council (experience then died out). Sub-
sequently, some ministries have addressed the problems of urban areas: the Ministry of Infras-
tructure to Infrastructure, the Ministry of Interior to Security, the Department for Development
and Cohesion policies to management of European regional policies (in particular, the program
Urban).
