Le politiche urbane nelle «città universitarie»

The term “university city” is very used but its common meaning says nothing about the very complex bundle of questions and problems which it is supposed to refer to. The university represents the node of an extensive and dense network of connections between activities, functions and spaces. Beyond its formative mission and the acknowledged research activities, University represents an important firm (even though a very peculiar “para-public” company) in the city with thousands of jobs, an economic agent which invests and draws investments. Its multiple events, not only its traditional missions, call lot of people who move in the city, eat, sleep, enjoy the city resorts. Students, researchers, clerks and visitors qualify some areas in the city organization, steering fluxes of mobility, affecting shopping organization, impacting on the real estate and on the housing supply. The effects of these processes are still not very much investigated. To satisfy the need of place for all its activities, University turns into a real estate agent and urban regeneration developer, building new campuses or purchasing vacant lands or dismissed estates. In front of these dynamics (not very well-known by local authorities as well as the academic institutions themselves) urban policies result ordinary and without any appropriate strategies.