Regionalization processes and institutional transformations in the Italian metropolitan areas among crises and ambiguities

ABSTRACT The paper focuses on the Italian territories affected by regionalization processes and subject to an institutional reform: the enforcement of Metropolitan Cities in 2014. Regionalization processes have occurred in many European countries in recent decades, also assisted by the European Cohesion Policy. In Italy, regionalized territories have place-specific characteristics and new emerging forms of bottom-up cooperation are taking place. The new government system is having to deal with a complex scenario due to the dissemination of these forms of cooperation linked to the regionalization taking place, alongside their potential coherence and/or contrast with the top-down design of the reform.