Il futuro di Expo 2015 in una metropoli a progetto

The masterplan for redevelopment of Expo 2015 as a district of technological innovation is the result of an audit promoted by Arexpo Spa. Three years after the end of the universal exhibition, the future of a site visited by twenty million people is being made clear. This article claims that, despite appearances to the contrary, some irreversible decisions were made in 2011 through the planning permission process as well as the design of two orthogonal axes that internally structure the site. These decisions, however, were independent from a metropolitan development strategy. As a city with strong institutional and civil pluralism, Milan has managed urban projects on a case by case basis through robust as well as variable coalitions of public and private stakeholders. The delays in planning for the future of Expo 2015 are due to the difficult assembling of a coalition capable of mobilizing sufficient resources, consensus and attention, rather than either to lack of planning rules or of strategic vision. In the case of Expo 2015, Milan witnesses its long-standing polyarchy as well as its character of a metropolis by project.