Metropolitan cities of Italy

The Città Metropolitana (Italian for "Metropolitan City") is an Italian administrative institution created by the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990), later amended by 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2009 provisions,^[1] operative from 2014. The Città Metropolitana, as defined by law, includes a large core city and the smaller surrounding towns that are closely related to it with regard to economic activities and essential public services, as well as to cultural relations and to territorial features, that form its metropolitan area. A città metropolitana (legal name) is therefore, by all means, a metropolitan area. The main aim of the reform should be to mirror the administration of an English metropolitan county and, for the biggest cities, the model of Greater London, but actually it simply maintained to the metropolitan areas the administrative powers of a province.

History

The original 1990 law individuated as metropolitan areas the communes of: Turin, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Bari, Naples and their respective hinterlands, reserving the autonomous regions the right to individuate metropolitan areas in their territory.^[2] Amendments added Reggio Calabria (in 2009)^[3] and Bergamo, Brescia, Salerno (in 2013)^[4] to the list. The metropolitan areas individuated by the autonomous regions were: Cagliari, Catania, Messina, Palermo and Trieste.

In 2005, the Italian Ministry of the Environment has produced a study on the state of metropolitan areas regulation in Italy, that contains an analysis of the local authorities already defined and suggestions on the delimitation of the remaining.^[5] In December 2013, Lower House, approves the establishment of the 9 metropolitan cities.^[6]

On 3 April 2014 the Lower House finally approved the law that establishes the metropolitan cities in Italy.^[7]

The new metropolitan cities has been operative since 1 January 2015. At the end of 2014 every Metropolitan Council had approved the new Statute of the respective Metropolitan City.^[8]

Organisation

The Metropolitan City will be composed by the municipalities (comuni) that now are members of the same province. Each Metropolitan City will be headed by a Metropolitan Mayor (Sindaco Metropolitano) assisted by a legislative body, the Metropolitan Council (Consiglio Metropolitano), and by a non-legislative assembly, the Metropolitan Conference (Conferenza Metropolitana). Members of Council will be elected and chosen by mayors and city councilors of each municipality in the Metropolitan City, the Metropolitan Mayor will be the Mayor of the chief town (capoluogo). The Metropolitan Conference will be composed by the mayors of the municipalities closest to the chief town.^[8]

The main functions devolved to the new metropolitan cities will be:

• local planning and zoning;
• provision of local police services;
• transport and city services regulation.

Metro cities

	Metropolitan City	Area (km²)	Population in million	Mayor[9]
	Bari Bari	3,863	1,3	Antonio Decaro (PD)
	Bologna Bologna	3,702	1,0	Virginio Merola (PD)
	Florence Firenze	3,514	1,0	Dario Nardella (PD)
	Genoa Genova	1,834	0,9	Marco Doria (SEL)
	Milan Milano	1,575	3,2	Giuliano Pisapia (SEL)
	Naples Napoli	1,171	3,1	Luigi De Magistris (MA)
	Rome Roma	5,363	4,4	Ignazio Marino (PD)
	Turin Torino	6,827	2,3	Piero Fassino (PD)
	Venice Venezia	2,473	0,8	Vittorio Zappalorto (special Commissioner from July 3, 2014)
	Reggio Calabria Reggio Calabria	3,210	0,6	planned

Alternative studies

Data by OECD (2010)^[10]

Data by Global MetroMonitor (2012)^[11]

Metro Cities with Forbes Fortune 500 Global Companies, in 2013:^[12]

• Milan: Generali, Telecom Italia, Unicredit
• Rome: Eni, Enel, Poste Italiane
• Turin: Exor, Intesa Sanpaolo

See also

• Regions of Italy
• Provinces of Italy
• Municipalities of Italy

References

Metropolitan Areas of Italy Bari Bologna Cagliari Catania Florence Genoa Messina Milan Naples Palermo Reggio Calabria Rome Turin Venice