Poteri e politiche territoriali in un contesto plurale: il sistema delle autonomie lombarde tra riforme e nuove sfide

Power and Territorial Policies in a Plural Context: The System of Local Autonomies in Lombardy between Reforms and New Challenges Lombardy’s local autonomy system has been undergoing significant reforms for some time now, driven by national, regional and EU initiatives, in response to socio-economic and territorial challenges and to the solicitations coming from the articulated and varied context of local and supra-local actors and powers. The article will analyse the impact that the most recent legislative initiatives (including Law 56/2014), the orientations of regional territorial planning, the spatial reconfigurations of the main providers of urban services, in the context of the economic-financial and pandemic crisis, have had on the regional policies of Lombardy and the Metropolitan City of Milan, through the reconfiguration of territorial powers. In emergency situations, the managerial and organizational functions of local authorities have, in fact, once again become central to public life, regardless of the criticalities clearly existing within the trinomial configured by institutions/territorial boundaries/assigned functions. This contribution will propose a textual and discursive investigation of institutional documents aimed at identifying the multi-level dynamics that emerge at different scales and between different scales, thus privileging an institutional approach and an analysis «through the instruments» of territorial government.