The Mid-Adriatic Metropolitan Area in Marche Region. An integrated territorial project that includes inland areas and cities in a metropolitan context to relaunch local competitive systems

i) Context and purpose of the research. This paper describes a part of the applied research carried out by the Urban Planning Area of SIMAU Department of Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona Municipality. ii) The scope of this paper is to demonstrate the short-sightedness of the decision, at a national level, of identifying 15 Metropolitan Areas according to dimensional rather than function and relational parameters, that trigger integrated metropolitan development. iii) methodology: this paper starts from the Marche region experience, which is one of the regions not included in the 15 regions with urban areas classified as metropolitan areas pursuant to Regional Law no. 56/2014 (because it does not have cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants in the territory), to request that the criteria used to identify metropolitan areas in Italy be revised. The Region has started the creation of the territorial partnership called the Mid-Adriatic Metropolitan Area (Area Metropolitana Medio-Adriatica – AMMA). This experience of a new method for the management of the territory was implemented by the Research project, by identifying functional connective systems that confirm its unitary structure and the current and future potential, for the widespread systematic development of the Metropolitan Area as a whole. iv) Principal results and major conclusions. This experience, is today in Italy, an extraordinary case study generated from of local participatory development (Community-Led Local Development – CLLD); a integrated, bottom-up process with the involvement of local communities. The results of the applied research, conducted in the Middle-Adriatic Territory, made it possible to identify critical and original aspects in the organisation of the “variable geometry” system of relationships between Municipalities, in terms of participation in complex projects and the introduction of specific Territorial Protocols of Understanding, to Identify de facto cities with respect to the de jure and developmental cities of the FUAs in Marche region. The entire Area Vasta (Associated Local Health Districts) indeed behaves, like a large city, with a unique urban structure and strong functional interconnected relationships.