Knowledge-creating activities in contemporary metropolitan areas, spatial rationales and urban policies : evidence from the case study of Milan

The interpretative analysis of the new knowledge economy, through the Milan metropolitan area case study, is part of a research that is located in a relatively unexplored area of urban milieu studies and has been carried out in strong sinergy with a group of scholars from various disciplines. This research, in investigating the activities that characterize the tertiary transiction of the urban economy, raises interesting epistemological, methodological and normative questions starting from the classification of knowledge and innovation generating activities (kcs-knowledge generating acrivities), in this creative sense, which is based on a logical-formal model. The research puts different perspectives in tension and in the case-studies seizes the opportunity to adjust the specific classification, adapting it to the contexts. It proposes and empirically tests an interpretative model of the relationships between business, city and territory and defines synthetic policy lines at the regulatory level. In this perspective, the Durkheimian concept of generative milieu is updated with particular reference to collective learning and an analytical frame is provided for recognizing milieus on three scales (dialogical, organizational and urban). The test and case studies concern the third type of milieu. Significant are the implications at the regulatory level emerging in the case studies. They refer to the possibility of a new economic policy, the emergence of new figures and functions and the possibilities of intervening on the milieu and landscape also with planning tools, as confirmed by some tests. In cases of weak regulatory capacity of local governments, as demonstrated by the case of Milan, the localization dynamics of kcs activities have exacerbated social inequalities and between economic activities. The case study of Milan and its metropolitan region reveals a high concentration of Kcs in the metropolitan core, while outside the Kcs tend to connect with activities. The contribution opens two windows: one on inequalities related to localization processes, as highlighted by the exclusion-attraction map; the other, on the cleavage between planning/urban management and innovative processes. These are arguments that are only apparently 'lateral' to the theme of creativity, as they can significantly favor its specification. The case study highlights how the weakness of regulatory policies has favored a strong concentration of kcs activities in the inner-city, most endowed with social and cultural infrastructures, and a social polarization. the activities that have colonized the central area are above all those of the more consolidated areas of fashion and design which are also responsible for the strong rise in real estate values.