Processes of adaptation and creation of a Territorial Governance. The experience of the cities of Benevento and Salerno (Campania region, Italy)

This paper presents some considerations about the definition and role of “medium-sized cities” in the processes of urban governance of the Italian regional systems, in line with the objectives of European programming 2007-2013. Beginning from some theoretical considerations, the research objective is to delineate the features of the “new urban geography” of Campania region as it has been formed on the base of the social and economic processes that in the last 30 years have modified the regional urban system in the widest context of Mezzogiorno. To such aim, the paper is articulated in two parts: the first one in which the fundamental passages are re-called in the processes of development of Italian urban areas that have carried to new paradigms object of theoretical approaches still in course of definition, and the second one in which such processes are considered regarding the model of urban development of Campania, on which the research is concentrated. Specifically, the paper presents the case of two “middle cities” in the Campania region: Benevento and Salerno, which play a particularly important role in the design and development of a “regional network of medium-sized cities”.