Policy and Complex Systems
putting together the smallest municipalities 6 .
Although a regional law , providing the general criteria for the aggregation has been recently enacted , the process by which this assemblage will take place is still undefined . On the one hand , in fact , any genuine spatial grouping proposed by the regional authority , may be viewed as a top down initiative , aimed to rationalize public spending but likely to be irrespective of the local situations . On the other hand , it is also evident that alternative bottom-up initiatives by which municipalities would aggregate themselves on an opportunistic basis will require lengthy and thorny negotiations ( not guaranteeing spatial consistency at the regional level ).
In this situation , the regional government is confronted with a twofold problem :
1 ) it has to leverage its authority in such a way as to avoid the negative consequences associated with either deliberated top down or spontaneous bottom up initiatives , 2 ) and it has to assume its responsibility in making the aggregation process as smooth and effective as possible .
Some encouraging , although weak signals exist which open up new possibilities for addressing the problem .
First , PICTO findings suggest that some of these possibilities will stem from the progressive consolidation of the sociotechnical infrastructure implemented by the regional broadband program . As the notion of sociotechnical infrastructure is gaining momentum , the opportunity it offers for information delivery across the regional system is also growing .
It is expected , in fact , that the information potentials 7 yielded by its functioning ( and namely by the widespread usage of the various governmental web portals and user applications encroaching on it ), will enable a setting in which a shared ( system ) learning by the various actors involved in the aggregation process can take place ( see , Mitleton-Kelly 2011 ).
Second , it is also felt that in order to activate this learning , a reflexive loop among municipalities and regional government is necessary ( see Aaltonen 2007 ); besides providing information to the different actors , it would account for their different goal seeking behaviors , and facilitate the discussion of the emerging clustering proposals .
To prompt the establishment of this reflexive loop , a preliminary investigation of a set of municipality aggregations ( of the 1206 municipalities ) has been made . Established for administrative purposes or for managing service delivery and community planning , the investigated aggregations are :
�� ����������� ������ ������� ���� ��������� territory into eight local areas ; ��������������������������������������������� municipalities in 16 larger communities consisting of approximately 32 municipalities ; ����������������������������������������-
6
Indeed , the need to overcome municipality fragmentation is a long-standing problem in Italy and since the 1990s several efforts have been undertaken by researchers and governmental bodies to address it .
7
It is worth underlining here that in Piedmont concern about information provision and access has institutional roots in a principle of the Piedmont Regional Constitution which states that : information ( about the programs and acts of the regional government ) is a prerequisite to democratic participation ; the Region will ensure its widest diffusion and the broadest pluralism of the media backend and user rights .
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