The North West Area of Milan: The North West Area of Milan:

territorial intelligence and territorial intelligence and local governance to support local governance to support diversification and innovationdiversification and innovation

Luciano VenturiniUniversità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle Istituzioni e dello Sviluppo

• Milan's city region has 9.4 million inhabitants. Milan’s metropolitan area (Greater Milan): 4,300,000 people. Milan: 1,250,000 inhabitants. Milan’s North West: 300.000

• Milan is the main engine of the Italian economy, the major financial and business centres in Italy with the headquarters of the largest Italian banks

• A cluster of highly skilled designers; financial, communication, marketing and advertising services, the media industry

• Several networks of specialised SMEs excel in light industries such as furniture, metal engineering and electric equipment, as well as mechanics

• The Milan metropolitan region’s industrial fabric is both specialised and diversified, which has helped to compensate for the negative effect of sectoral crises such as the Alfa-Romeo case

• Fiera Milano, the city's Exhibition Center and Trade Fair complex, with the new center at Rho-Pero (opened in April 2005), is one of the most important in the world

An analysis of Milan’s city region and its North West areaAn analysis of Milan’s city region and its North West area

• The area is a strategic one in Lombardy: it is just between Milan and Malpensa Airport, in the direction of Simplon pass and Swiss tunnel of Gottardo

• Its size: 140 kmq.; 300,000 inhabitants; 125,000 employees, a very good level of accessibility both for railways and highways,

• Big structural changes over the last decade: former core industries (not only car but also chemical industries) faced a process of delocation

• The impact of Alfa Romeo’s crisis: several thousand workers were laid off as a result of Alfa Romeo’s crisis

• The closure of Arese plant, as well as the difficulties of some component suppliers, have had a profound social, psychological and economic impact on the local communities

The North West areaThe North West area

• We combined the territorial intelligence approach and the interactive innovation paradigm to define a unified framework to assess points of strength and point of weakness of both Milan and its North West area

• The approach of territorial intelligence to local development: emphasis on specific socio-economic conditions, resources and capabilities, the territorial dimension of governance, the need for a shared vision among a a variety of stakeholders, the implementation of territorial learning

• But avoid localism and ensure openness and flexibility, cognitive and organizational proximity, cooperation with other areas it’s essential to prevent actors to become locked-in

• The interactive paradigm to innovation: A new view of the innovation process: from a ‘linear model’ of innovation towards an ‘interactive paradigm’

• The traditional linear model: innovation viewed as mainly technological, product driven and defined in universal terms without a specific attention to firms’ heterogeneity and territorial context

• Innovation not mainly technological, but also focused on firms’ heterogeneity and territorial context, innovation as a systemic phenomenon in which interaction, learning and cooperation play a crucial role

• Focus on the firms’ managerial and organizational abilities to deal to outside sources of knowledge and integrate these with internal knowledge in the firm

• Agencies and intermediaries working on the basis of personal trust relations are crucial to identify SMEs’ needs for informal, uncodified and disembodied aspects of the knowledge

A conceptual framework to assess local performances A conceptual framework to assess local performances

and future perspectivesand future perspectives

• A very strong area but growing international pressure leads to the need to support the renewal of its comparative advantages and the need to increase diversification

• Negative externalities: very high levels of traffic congestion and pollution: Continuous urban sprawl and widening commuting flows have generated transport bottlenecks and road congestion.

• A relatively weak innovative system: Milan suffers from the lack of a well-structured and coherent innovative system

• Several local SMEs lack the capacity to develop sophisticated skills and adopt nonprice strategies

• Research institutions and universities perceive very few incentives to collaborate, they generate modest spin-offs and they barely interact with SMEs

Topic issues examined: problems and points of weakness in Milan

• The area remains weak in developing new high-tech sectors and competitive high technology enterprises

• SMEs have difficulties in establishing linkages with external markets and potential partners to increase networking and organizational proximity

• an area still struggling to improve its perspectives after the negative ‘shock’ of the Alfa Romeo closure and make the most of the new asset created by the positive ‘shock’ of Fiera-Milano at Rho-Pero

• More effective training policy and apprenticeship programmes have to be improved through stronger links with the companies

• Local government and organisations involved have to adopt a more conscious and cohesive approach to promoting non-traditional choices at the vocational level

Topic issues examined: North West areaTopic issues examined: North West area

• Main focus on short-term responses linked to the immediate ‘needs’ of workers through a package of services to help them access new training and job opportunities

• The crucial role of local development agencies: ‘Milano Metropoli’ (the development agency of the metropolitan area of Milan), and ComunImprese ( the development agency of the North-West area)

• Increasing institutional awareness of the benefits of a local development approach based on territorial intelligence and interactive innovation

• The response has been incomplete in terms of engaging key decision makers, multiple agencies and expertise, and in leveraging national as well as regional and local funding

• Weak spatial coordination to focus on long-term opportunities to establish a new manufacturing base, invest in transport infrastructure and develop advanced tertiary sectors

Regional and local policiesRegional and local policies

• Milan and the North West area are finally moving in the right direction but we have to do that much more quickly and be aware that much more remains to be done

• Is there a paradigm shift to the combined paradigm? Not yet

• More emphasis on territorial intelligence and the interactive innovation paradigm to support diversification and innovation

• To implement this vision requires intergovernmental collaboration, appropriate governance to solve institutional fragmentation and more coordination at regional, metropolitan and local levels

• Milan’s experience, particularly in its North West area, provides a clear example of the relevance of the emerging view of the interaction between interactive innovation and territorial intelligence to local development in a ‘knowledge economy’

• Looking for a positive shock: Expo 2015: Milan has made an offer for the 2015 Universal Exposition. Under the title “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”

• Expo 2015 could be a big opportunity for Milan to go beyond short-termism, to meet the lack of spatial coordination, to establish synergies between food and design, invest in transport infrastructure and develop advanced services.

The need for a paradigm shiftThe need for a paradigm shift