Planning for Military Real Estate Conversion: Collaborative Practices and Urban Redevelopment Projects in Two Italian Cities

Despite the fact that the strategic dismissal of a number of military bases has been affecting contemporary urban and rural areas and becoming a new challenge for city planning and policy-making, little attention has been paid to this complex topic at an international level. Several authors have suggested that collaborative planning pro- 10 cesses are crucial for the success of military real estate conversion. This©article analyzes the Italian policy for the alienation and leasing of public real estate between 1997 and©2012 through the analysis of two projects whose focus was on military real estate in central Italy. This analysis shows why collaboration was not able to solve the significant urban challenges related to the conversion of these areas. The authors 15 suggest taking national policy and local variables and solutions into further consideration (e.g. the quality and design of the physical environment, the policy tools available in the potentially conflictual institutional setting of military base conversion) rather than considering the collaboration with the local community alone.