From the UN new urban agenda to the local experiences of urban development: The case of Potenza

The references that United Nations New Urban Agenda (UN HABITAT, 2015 and 2016, 2017) draw to the attention of disciplinary debate could represent a strong innovation for urban governance instruments and procedures. Especially in this period when European cities are defining the operational framework of development strategies 2014–2020 within the complex system of programming and management of European resources. Tools that the New Cohesion Policy proposes for the definition of local urban agendas are based on a procedural innovation that makes cities protagonists in a complex process of resources planning and managing (huge but never sufficient) for the regeneration and development of cities. In this work we propose an evaluation of the ITI of the Municipality of Potenza, approved in 2017, as it represents an approach that looks at strategic visions of urban development born in a context of fragility of local government and financial contingency for the municipal finances. A representative situation of a large number of medium-sized cities that are called upon to perform functions of ‘Managing Authority’ within the management of resources of Regional Operational Programmes without a structured process of technical/administrative ‘empowerment’ that defines skills, functions and scenarios of sustainability within an urban planning careful to the three principles: equity, efficiency, conservation of resources. In the proposed case study, a framework of isolated interventions emerges which implement parts of a strategy consistent with the guidelines of the urban planning instrument and which require an integrated vision of the main priority intervention areas of local context (mobility, urban parks, historical-cultural resources, services to citizens).