Not just local. Reflections on neighbourhood policies in Italy - Two key notions began to appear in urban policies (and not just Italian urban policies) with the issues of public neighbourhoods and the ‘neighbourhood pacts’: these were the local interpretation of public action and the encouragement of forms of community action. Undiscriminating acceptance of the virtuous nature of these two references may be put into question thanks to two factors specific to the Italian situation: the unceasing propensity to over estimate the physical side of redevelopment intervention and the enthusiasm for the particularist virtues of the contexts even when general considerations and collective responsibilities would seem appropriate.

Massimo Bricocoli, in "TERRITORIO" 46/2008, pp. 109-113, DOI: