Government or Governance of Urban Innovation?

Abstract

The article discusses the relationship between urban innovation and new forms of governance. Although the concept of “governance” seems to be a panacea for any sort of market or state failure, very often it is ill-defined and/or ideologically loaded. However, there is a growing consensus that the mobilization of social and economic actors m “governmental” roles is an important, if not essential, factor m bringing about innovative policies, at least at the local scale. In our study, we derive from the existing literature on social capital and institutional development, the hypotheses that the more diverse the actors involved and the tighter their linkages, the better the innovative performance will be. In order to test these hypotheses, we have investigated two northern Italian cities, Milan and Turm, that underwent similar changes in the political and institutional sphere in the decade 1993–2002. The research carried out shows that certainly Turin had a better performance m terms of urban innovation than Milan and that such a result is associated with a more complex network m which different levels of government, and different types of actors, are represented. Also the “tightness” of the network is higher, thus providing evidence to support the idea that policy innovation is associated with changes in the structure of governance. However, looking m more detail at the evidence collected, it reveals quite clearly that Milan is much more receptive to the proposals coming from civil society (both from the profit and the non-profit sector) while Turin, like other innovative Italian cities, seems much more dependent upon the leadership of the public institutions. This poses an interesting theoretical problem: How much institutional leadership is needed in order to get good governance: more or less? Or, is it possible that in order to make a better assessment of the relationship between innovation, at least urban innovation, and the structure of governance, one should make a distinction between short term, m which more “government” means more innovation, and the long term in which the contrary is true?

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