Pianificazione strategica tra sviluppo locale e policentrismo: alcune evidenze empiriche sul caso siciliano

AbstractStrategic planning, local development and policentrism: empirical evidence forSicilyObjectivesThe aim of this paper is the analysis of metropolitan strategic planning in Sicily.Urban areas are becoming important units for territorial cohesion policy andstrategic planning represents more and more an important policy instrument. Evidenceof a policentric pattern is tested across 30 strategic plans carried out by Siciliancities in order to derive useful insights for policies implications.Methods and ResultThis study uses multidimensional scaling and rank-size regressions across SicilianFunctional Urban Areas (FUA) as well as descriptive information drawnfrom strategic plans in order to identify the main characteristics of these instrumentsand to provide evidence on their capacity to innovate traditional local developmentpolicies.ConclusionsThe empirical results show a strong evidence in favour of hierarchical patternsacross urban areas which are adopting a strategic plan while polycentric forces appearto be very limited.