Paper presented at the Workshop "Labour Market Areas: Current Developments and Future Use."

1. LMAs as Urban Areas:
an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
Giovanni A. Barbieri, Istat
Lorenzo Barbieri, RomaTre
Federico Benassi, Istat
Marianna Mantuano, Istat
Maria Rosaria Prisco, Istat
Alessandra Reale, Istat
Rome, 16 June 2017
Labour Market Areas:
current developments and future use

2. Contents
What are metropolitan areas in Italy?
Old story: administrative vs. functional
areas, provinces vs. LMAs
Game over? Not yet!
Three strategies
Two examples
One day
2 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
Barbieri et al. – Rome, 16 June 2017

3. Metropolitan areas in Italy
 Law no. 142 of 1990
 Long standstill: municipalities vs. provincial
authorities
 Law no. 56 of 2014
 A Gordian knot
 The egg of Columbus?
 Quite unexpectedly: territorial footprint =
relative provinces
 Not a good idea!
3 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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4. Città metropolitane [1]
4 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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5. Città metropolitane [2]
5 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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Città metropolitana Comuni
Superficie
(km2)
Popolazione
(Istat 2016)
Densità demografica
(ab/km2)
Roma 121 5.363,28 4.340.474 809,29
Milano 134 1.575,65 3.208.509 2.036,31
Napoli 92 1.178,93 3.113.898 2.641,28
Torino 315 6.817,28 2.275.004 333,71
Palermo 82 5.009,28 1.271.406 253,81
Bari 41 3.862,88 1.263.820 327,17
Catania 58 3.573,68 1.115.535 312,15
Firenze 42 3.513,69 1.013.348 288,40
Bologna 55 3.702,32 1.005.831 271,68
Venezia 44 2.472,91 855.696 346,03
Genova 67 1.833,79 854.099 465,76
Messina 108 3.266,12 640.675 196,16
Reggio Calabria 97 3.210,37 555.836 173,14
Cagliari 17 1.248,68 431.657 345,69
TOTALE 1273 46.629,00 21.945.788 470,65

6. A good idea? Not really!
6 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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7. Provinces 1928
Milan+Como  Varese
Friuli  Gorizia
Jonio (Taranto)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Turin  Aosta
Novara  Vercelli
Genova  Savona
Trento  Bolzano
Firenze  Pistoia
Perugia  Terni
Chieti+Teramo+Aquila  Pescara
Roma  Viterbo
Roma+Aquila  Rieti
Roma+Caserta  Frosinone
Potenza  Matera
Lecce  Brindisi
Siracusa  Ragusa
Caltanissetta+Catania 
Castrogiovanni (Enna)
Nuoro
7

8. Provinces and LMAs
 Annual Report 2015, a comparison in footprints
 Turin
 Province (316 municipalities, including Alpine resorts) vs.
LMA (112 municipalities)
 Polycentrism: Ivrea
 Milan
 2 new provinces (Lodi and Monza e Brianza) excised in
1995 and 2009
 Provinces are fossils, LMAs are functional
 The ‘new’ geography of Metropolitan areas leaves aside
any functional analysis aimed at finding the fittest
configuration to satisfy local needs
8 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
Barbieri et al. – Rome, 16 June 2017

9. Comparison of provincial footprints
and relevant LMAs
9 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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10. Game over? Not yet
 Two possibilities offered by the 2014 law
(after assessing the general principle)
 Municipalities can choose whether to adhere
or not to the metropolitan area  correcting
at the margins  fine tuning
 Specialisation  partitioning a single
Metropolitan area in functional parts devoted
to different urban roles  complementarity 
polycentrism
10 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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11. Three strategies
1. Features of the urban fabric
(geodemographics)
2. Public transportation (personal rapid
transit systems, big data)
3. Daily mobility flows (possibly with
alternative partitioning algorithms)
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12. Features of the urban fabric
Census tracts
Ecological classification of the different
urban areas
Geodemographics
[Vickers & Rees 2005]
↓
Birds of a feather flock together
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13. The pattern of residence
 A functional organisation expressed in the
present and everyday life
 The evidence of the hierarchies implicit in
social stratification (the city of the rich and
the city of the poor)
 The result of the accumulation of
knowledge, which is what ultimately
makes the city so attractive to people and
economic activities
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14. The method and the numbers
 14 LMAs of the metropolitan areas
 661 municipalities, totalling 85,310
Census tracts
 Over 17.5 million inhabitants (29 percent
of the national population in 2011), half of
which in the 14 core municipalities
 26 indicators (controlled for redundancy)
 K-means clustering algorithm
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15. Five typologies
Upper-middle class areas
Middle-class areas
Ageing population areas
Young household areas
Working class areas / declining area
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16. Distribution of areas within LMAs
16 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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17. Features of the urban fabric: Milan
17 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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18. Features of the urban fabric: Rome
18 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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19. Two examples
Cagliari
 Fine tuning
Turin
 Specialisation
 Polycentrism
19 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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20. Cagliari
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21. Cagliari and relevant LMA
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22. Features of the urban fabric: Cagliari
22 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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23. Turin
23 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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Ivrea
Chivasso
Chieri
Ciriè
Pinerolo
Canavese

24. Turin and relevant LMA
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25. Features of the urban fabric: Turin
25 LMAs as Urban Areas: an Alternative to Italy’s città metropolitane
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26. One day: history
16 June 1904: Bloomsday
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare
from which I am trying to awake
What about geography?
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27. One day: geography
— What is it? says John Wyse.
— A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the
same people living in the same place.
— By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if
that’s so I’m a nation for I’m living in the
same place for the past five years.
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