Policy and Governance Innovations for Sustainable Urban Development: An Overview of the 2014–2020 Structural Funds Programming in Italy

This paper deals with policy and governance innovations in EU regional policies, illustrating how the strategy for sustainable urban development has gradually consolidated over time, progressively enlarging the scope of interventions and the related financial resources. As is well known, the current programming (2014–2020) calls for prominent attention to the territorial dimension and, in particular, to the EU urban agenda. In fact, member states have been invited to introduce specific policy instruments in order to promote integrated sustainable development in urban areas at national and regional levels. Evidence from a preliminary analysis of the Italian programming documents shows, however, that the success of these instruments cannot be taken for granted. Quite in line with the experience of other EU countries, the scenario of implementation of the new governance and policy provisions varies significantly across the country, bringing to light a number of obstacles and challenges to their diffusion within domestic policy structures.