The 2016–2018 Milan Metropolitan Strategic Plan: Features and Limits of an Innovative Tool Within the Local Government Framework

This chapter analyses whether the strategic planning instruments introduced in Italy in recent years are adequate and whether they can operate effectively in concert with urban and regional planning tools. We discuss the meaning of “strategic plan” in the Italian regulatory context (beginning with the law which introduced the tool in 2014) and critically analyse the structure and contents of the first and, in a sense, most significant strategic plan, the Milan Metropolitan Strategic Plan approved in 2016. We investigate the contradictions and critical aspects inherent in the framework which, we conclude, are likely to undermine much of the potential and results of such tools.