Ambiti territoriali Ottimali e Unioni di Comuni. Sfide e Prospettive per la pianificazione intercomunale in Toscana e Piemonte

Territorial transformations and increasing environmental pressures call for a rethinking of the scales and modes of spatial planning and governance. In Italy, Regions have assumed a central role in the top-down definition and management of territorial policies, particularly in identifying optimal territorial areas for the joint exercise of municipal functions, while Unions of Municipalities represent bottom-up forms of cooperation that often do not fully coincide with such delimitations. This paper proposes a comparative critical analysis of the Tuscany and Piedmont Regions, aimed at assessing the coherence between optimal territorial areas defined in regional normative and planning instruments and the Unions of Municipalities established. Through spatial and regulatory analysis, the study highlights asymmetries between administrative-institutional boundaries and territorial structures, underscoring the need to integrate morphological invariants and relational systems in defining intermunicipal cooperation areas.