The Paradigmatic Case of the Metropolitan City of Florence

In 2015 was held in Barcelona (13th March, 2015) the first conference On territorial competitiveness and social cohesion in European Metropoles, organized by European Metropolitan Authorities. The Conference went around four Keywords Competitiveness, Governance, Social cohesion, Cooperation and ended with a ten-point final Declaration and a Document of conclusions. The points touched by the document may be considered the “problematic background” for European metropolitan areas. This background should develop a new kind of governance, both vertically and horizontally, to give political recognition and perception of belonging to metropolitan areas. starting with the difference between metropolitan cities and metropolitan areas, which have many differences between them. Although the seminar attended by only fifteen metropolitan institution issues arising and the omens indicated can be generalized to the entire European area. The paper will use the final document as compared to discuss the knot of governance in the case of the metropolitan city of Florence. The case is the “light” of superficiality with which implemented the choice of metropolitan areas in Italy. It is a fine example of the distance between the territory of the real economy and the institutional territory one.