Spatial planning constitutes an institutional activity of government and governance that sets up reference development frameworks to coordinate policies and actions for cities and territories. This activity is functional to have coherence and support the implementation of European and international policies focused on socio-ecological transition. The study provides an overview of how the concept of green infrastructure (GI) is central to spatial planning to enable a sustainable regeneration of contemporary cities and territories and to protect biodiversity within a climate-proof framework of interventions. The research aim is to explore the modalities of GI methodological integration in urban planning to address the green transition. Two Italian case studies have been selected to investigate how differently structured urban plans at the local scale design and interpret GI. The discussion from the comparative case study analysis focuses on what one can learn from conformative planning approaches in response to contemporary challenges and with respect to the regulatory framework in force. Final reflections concern the need to work in Italy on a review of the traditional urban planning model with new national fundamental principles, providing a framework for coherence and coordination of the national post-pandemic recovery programme.

In a context of environmental and socio-economic challenges, metropolitan areas represent a fundamental territorial scale for addressing cohesion, competitiveness, and sustainability, key priorities in European territorial development. Accessibility to services is crucial, as it reflects the right to full citizenship, particularly in territories where attractive urban centres coexist with peripheral areas. Balancing these dynamics is a major challenge for metropolitan governance and planning, especially in Italy, where Metropolitan Cities (MCs) have been institutionalised for over a decade. This paper examines spatial structure, accessibility, and governance through a comparative analysis of three Italian MCs in the Po Valley macro-region, a polycentric system along the Mediterranean Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network. Despite overall interconnections, the MCs display different settlement and accessibility patterns. The Metropolitan City of Turin is selected as a case study for its territorial diversity, metropolitan-mountainous character, misalignment between administrative and functional boundaries, and accessibility limitations. The research examines current planning instruments and governance-government arrangements of the case study in addressing these challenges. Findings, framed within the decadal review of Italian MCs, emphasise the need for greater coordination between plans, policies and programmes, combined with strengthened inter-municipal collaboration and territorial representation, to support a multi-level governance framework capable of coherent, effective, and balanced metropolitan development.

This paper presents a GIS-based methodology to assess the potential of planning residues—zoning areas designated for public services but left unimplemented—as strategic assets in promoting green-oriented urban regeneration in the City of Turin (Italy). Within the framework of the city’s new Land Use Plan, the study explores how these residual Areas to be Transformed for Services (ATS) can serve as spatial anchors for future neighbourhood-scale service hubs, aligned with ecological transition goals and the ‘15-minute city’ paradigm. The proximity-based spatial analysis evaluates land use/land cover and regulatory zoning within a 300-meter buffer around each ATS, offering a quali-quantitative understanding of urban morphology and green infrastructure distribution. A pilot application in District No. 4 highlights local disparities in service provision and green space access, supporting site-specific planning strategies. Findings confirm that planning residues, if reactivated, can strengthen public infrastructure, enhance climate resilience, and contribute to a more inclusive, ecologically sound urban fabric. The proposed approach illustrates how underutilised urban land can inform flexible, place-based planning tools capable of addressing contemporary urban challenges, particularly in high-density, service-poor areas.

The complex and dynamic nature of urban resilience makes it both essential and challenging to define an appropriate qualitative-quantitative approach for its measurement that combines context-sensitive indicators with spatial analysis. The method proposed in this paper balances standardised frameworks with local specificity through the application of selected resilience indicators in the city of Turin (Italy). By spatially mapping territorial response elements related to natural vulnerabilities and socio-institutional dynamics, it emphasises cross-sectoral integration for effective resilience strategies for spatial planning. It further stresses the importance of developing actionable indicators capable of informing planning tools and supporting adaptive, inclusive territorial governance. These insights are useful for the ongoing revision of Turin’s land use plan and other supra-local planning tools, aiming to address socio-economic and environmental challenges more cohesively.

The paper straddles the boundary between urbanism and sociology, working on the common ground of rights: public services and facilities (‘planning standard,’ according to the Italian spatial planning legislation) on the one hand and the care of the commons on the other, in addition to attempting to grapple with a third dimension of rights that places space and society alongside law. This methodological hypothesis is practiced from the critical analysis of one of the basic public facilities: the school. In the national debate on public services and common goods, school spaces are one of the recurring examples of how they have functionality as public educational services during school time and how they can also have other functional profiles as common goods, i.e., as civic centers open to the urban community during out-of-school hours. The theme of the hybridization of spaces and functions emerges with ever-increasing theoretical and empirical force in the reflections on so-called social innovation. Even if, in several cases, many people ignored one of the most beautiful definitions of planning standards by Giovanni Astengo (1966). He stated that, besides being a minimum, standards represent a minimum of civilization. The paper intends to bring attention to the complex value of spatial and social resources related to schools.