Towards metropolitan regionalism. Stuttgart and Rome: two models in comparison

The process of “metropolisation” that has characterized the development of urbanization in contemporary cities over the last few decades, is being subjected to a transformation process oriented towards “regionalization” dynamics, where metropolitan regions become the engines of economic development and competitiveness on an international scale. The objective of a comparison between the experience of the Stuttgart region and that of metropolitan Rome, the largest municipality in Europe, is to contrast an example of an efficient, democratic and dynamic regional government with the difficulties in administering a territory as complex as Rome, in an institutional and political framework that does not tend to foster chances of constituting new government models at a supra-municipal scale.