Industrial districts as cities. Supra-local governance in the Sassuolo ceramics district

The paper discusses the plural notion of metropolitan territories in Italy by focusing on industrial districts (IDs), which are not included in the national urban agenda. IDs represent today not only important productive systems inserted in global value chains, but also peculiar urban conurbations formed by processes of territorial coalescence, thus requiring adequate representation and attention. In the Sassuolo ceramics district, some changes and challenges have recently stimulated new reflections among local institutions and have finally led to the proposal of the ‘city-district’ idea, which has actually encountered many difficulties and resistances. The paper critically reflects on the feasibility, necessity and possible configuration of this new governance system, firstly by showing that some relevant issues for the competitiveness and sustainability of the ID have already reached a supra-local scale, thus demanding common strategies and policies of territorial improvement and regeneration; secondly, by giving suggestions for its effective implementation.