Cultural Policy-making by Networking: Local Cooperation and Global Competition in Small and Medium-sized Italian Cities

Can a network of small and medium-sized cities integrate their cultural service provision or promote innovative cultural policy to the extent of being recognized at a national or even international level? How can such a network lever the legacy of past urban regeneration in a period of economic stagnation? Starting from these questions, this chapter highlights international attempts and examples of this trend in Europe and comments on current contributions in academic and cultural policy literature. More specifically, the chapter addresses the original attempts and tentative solutions in an Italian case study: since the mid-2000s, seven medium-sized municipalities in the Northern Milanese subregion have started to come to terms with common problems of potential redundancy in local cultural services. They have also faced the problems of promoting cultural initiatives in a sustainable way and representing them in a metropolitan region that is dominated by and centred in the capital city of Milan. These problems were addressed by trying to assemble, rescale, and reprogram part of the governance of cultural service provision, in artistic and creative production and other policy fields. At the same time, the network has promoted outstanding projects in order to compete globally, but on the way it has encountered significant political and financial difficulties and failures. These issues are common to many parts of Europe. This chapter suggests that a number of sustainability and managerial problems emerging in cultural policy networking can be better understood if connected to urban development processes and the related economic interests