Key lessons from Italy

​All across Europe, inequality is rising. This is visible in the persistent social and economic divides between countries, between regions, and between cities and rural areas. In response to this inequality, the regional policy of the European Union has striven to strengthen the Union’s territorial cohesion. However, the policy response of the EU’s individual Member States to regional inequality tends to diverge from the EU’s focus on territorial cohesion, and examples of Member State policies and practices that correspond with the EU vision of enhanced cohesion are more rare. In this handbook, we examine some of the Member State policies and initiatives that do seem to work towards a vision similar to the EU vision for a territorially cohesive Union. The handbook presents the findings and recommendations of the international research project Inequality, urbanization and territorial cohesion: Developing the European social model of economic growth and democratic capacity (COHSMO). COHSMO is based on 21 case studies carried out in seven European countries: Denmark, Austria, the United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, Italy and Lithuania.