The Impacts of the 2008-09 Financial Crisis on Urban Competitiveness in Italy

The financial crisis of 2008-09 that has spread from the U.S. to the whole world, initiated with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers bank, has affected a wide range of territories, from large metropolitan areas to small urban centers in industrialized Western nations. Now it is generally acknowledged that countries, regions and cities compete against each other to attract businesses, talents and skills (Camagni 2002). Thus, urban competitiveness can offer an interesting perspective to interpret the effects of the crisis. In this context, given that Italy has been suffering considerable financial and social difficulties since 2009, the paper1 aims to understand if the economic breakdown has affected the level of urban competitiveness in Italy by investigating how the competitiveness of Italian provinces has changed in the last two decades comparing the 2011 scenario – based on 1991-2001 trend – with the 2011 available data. Initial results of the analysis show that territories have responded differently to the strong economic recession: the economic and social systems of a large number of provinces have experienced a worsening of their competitiveness, some have been able to endure the consequences of the crisis preserving their level of competitiveness, while others have reacted succeeding in increasing it.