Despite being now far from its
past as an 'automobile mono-culture' dominated by Fiat, Turin is
still a city with a strong industrial vocation.
Manufacturing, and in particular the automotive and high-tech
sectors, continue to play an important role in the economy of
the metropolitan city, according to the Mista project, carried
out by the ESPON European cooperation programme, which
specializes in regional analyses.
The study, which analyses the recent past and future of
metropolitan industries in the EU, highlights the challenges
linked to the restructuring of the economic base in large and
medium-sized European urban centres.
In this analysis, the case of Turin stands out.
"It is rather particular," says Valeria Fedeli, a lecturer in
urban planning and policy at the Politecnico University of
Milan, "because it is linked to the great city-factory, which
has disappeared".
With respect to Milan, Turin has suffered more due to the
abandonment of industry and its ancillary chains of production.
The 2007 financial crisis hit the Piedmont city hard, generating
"further stress in an already fragile manufacturing industry
which survived on the total dependence on Fiat", say the
researchers, preventing "the abandonment of its industrial
vocation in favour of an aspiring global city".
The study also highlights that the construction, logistics and
public-service sectors, identified as one of the main employment
growth engines in other European cities, have not reached a
similar importance in Turin.
"Apart from some data that show a significant crisis," explains
Fedeli, "research has mapped out planning areas that show an
attempt to mix the service and manufacturing sectors, with some
successful results".
In other words, production can still need the city as a place
that links the product and experience.
In these conditions, manufacturing may still find new life
in the city and help it emerge from stagnation.
Turin, the researchers write, has endured the difficulties on
the part of local actors to cope with the process of
de-industrialization and transformation of the city's economic
base, which has impeded its capacity to innovate.
This must be the starting point to develop an adequate
industrial strategy for the area.
In particular, the study underlines the need for a stronger
alliance between Turin and its neighboring towns, which are
suffering economic decline, as well as local collaboration
between research and business to develop innovative ideas and
build strategic alliances.
This must be flanked, finally, by a strong strategy at a
national level to support highly internationalized sectors, such
as automotive and aerospace, whose dynamics elude the capacity
of the local context, and thus reinforce their roots in the
local area.
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