Is Italy still special? Conceptual and empirical remarks on urbanization in the era of globalization

Many scholars have argued, over time, about Italy’s social, economic, political and cultural peculiarities. Its urbanization too has always been studied as fairly distinctive: many historic cities with singular settings, often held up as models of an appealing way of life. How has globalization changed the Italian city and its image? Is Italian urbanization just a part of an overall global flattening? Do Italian cities, and their social and spatial settings and practices, show a radical break with the past? Do its greater metropolitan city-regions show patterns and transformations like those of post-metropolitan situations around the world? In this chapter, we will try to frame these issues through a discussion of some concepts which seem of basic importance for the understanding of Italian urbanization. Such concepts are mostly related to the influence of time (and space, place, territory, also as a legacy from the past) in the urban persistence and transformation (not only physical, but also social and economic), which appears much more powerful than in other realities, such as the US or Asia.