The Strategic Development Plan embraces an area that includes the cities of Padua and Venice and their hinterland for a total of 32 Municipalities.

The plan was completed during the year 2002 and is now going through the approval stages by the government of the Region of Veneto.

The area involved in the development plan can be graphically summarised by the image of a _dumbbell", where the two large urban _disks" of the cities of Venice and Padua are joined by the _pole" represented by the linear city of the Brenta Riviera that flanks the river, the Brenta Waterway, from Padua to Venice.

The project and its relation to the geographical, economic and social contest

The project is justified by the desire to the enhance this geographical area by providing it with a metropolitan status.

The prospect whereby the integration of the three areas (Padua, Venice and the Brenta Riviera) is encouraged is essential to enable this area to perform the quality leap that is strategically necessary not only for the Veneto region but also for all the north-eastern regions the adriatic/danube.

Indeed, the area is located at the intersection of important continental routes: the east-west corridor (Barcelona - Kiev), the Adriatic corridor, the north-south corridor (Hamburg - Gioia Tauro). The successful positioning of an urban system within the European scenario requires the development of strategies aimed at qualifying unusual facilities and maintaining functional services.

To successfully compete with European metropolitan districts it is necessary to think bigger than the _local" level yet smaller than the regional level.

The intention of this plan is to grasp an interesting opportunity by promoting actions that, in terms of benefits, will be much more valuable as a whole rather than individually.

As to the co-operation strategy that characterises the idea underlying the plan, emphasising and strengthening the individual identities of each urban element is certainly not a contradiction, on the contrary: in a strategy aimed at searching for consistency, synergy and integration between nuclei, each of which is characterised by specific vocations and potential, this becomes a point of advantage.

The enhancement of the typical polycentric layout of the Veneto can only be achieved by recognising and improving the quality of decentralised functions and the areas they serve. This means focusing upon what the plan calls the _services netwo", that is those elements that can facilitate better social, functional and morphological integration of the city.

This is particularly important considering the situations of Mestre, of the Brenta Riviera, of the hinterland of Padua, areas whose identities have been diminished and whose role as been largely neglected.

In the case of Mestre, a town largely characterised by random development and whose position is clearly subordinate to that of the ancient city of Venice, its identity can only be recovered starting from the awareness of its own potential and resources, and the need for a new layout that will enable the recovery of its residential quality.

With its facilities (port, airport), its productive assets and its strategic location, this mainland town can play an important role within a vaster area and more specifically in the north-east. It is clear that it is time to redesign the town and its spaces, grasping the opportunity offered by the lack of obstacles in its layout thereto.

The identity of the Brenta Riviera also needs recovering: although it has not been fully lost it is certainly very hazy.

Despite the strong fragmentation characterising administrative structures, the area of the Riviera is undoubtedly a particular unit, an urban unicum stretching over approximately twenty kilometres. It has historically been characterised by a very specific structure, whose identity has risked being undermined by its intermediate position between the large urban centres of Padua and Venice, an identity determined by the linearity of this settlement that is made up of historical centres, villas and parks resting on the riverbanks of the Brenta Waterway.

The recent effort made by local administrations and economic players have encouraged the research of a comprehensive view of the area whereby the recognition of specific features can turn the latter into driving forces for its future development.

As to the hinterland of Padua special importance is attached to creating and completing the infrastructure network connecting the municipalities of the outskirts with the city in view of the further development of activities and strategic functions, with an approach based not only on identifying free areas but also considering criteria such as integration and urban projects, always bearing in mind the context.

Also, in order to ensure a balanced future development, it is essential to conserve and emphasise the continuity of environmental systems: this relatively intact system characterised by open spaces close to the city of Padua is mentioned in the plan as the _Large fields of Padua" that need safeguarding in their quality as 'green ring' surrounding the metropolitan area.

Challenges and aims of the plan

The medium-long term aims to be pursued through town planning strategies and geographical development policies in the Padua  Venice metropolitan area include:

- emphasising cities, environment and heritage, overcoming the sprawling and unplanned growth model and adopt strategies based on qualitative development of existing facilities, a more rational use of the land to avoid waste and introducing new forms of architecture for the growing demand for services;

- the co-ordinated development of infrastructure and logistics that on the one hand can ensure the efficiency and sustainability of local and metropolitan mobility, and on the other can follow-up the growth of the production framework;

- reinforce the competitiveness of existing economic players, from industry to tourism, by extending the employment of innovation and developing the supply of metropolitan-class services.

These general aims generate a number of basic option that represent the choices that will qualify the plan.

The focal point of the suggested strategy is to integrate the aims of local development policies: therefore, actions aimed at adjusting infrastructure, urban and environmental recovery strategies and local economic development projects all become strategic features for implementing policies that pursue an overall strategic vision.

These aims are the outcome of working guidelines focusing on the different network systems located in the metropolitan area that need reinforcing and emphasising:

• the mobility network (road, rail, waterways and airborne);

• the network of knowledge, made up of cultural, training and research centres;

• the services network with its metropolitan-class systems;

• the production network, based in Marghera and Padua and enriched by centres of excellence led by the footwear district of the Brenta Riviera;

• the sports network beyond the municipal level;

• the accommodation facility network and of local awareness, made up of tourist centres and by historical elements connecting geographical areas.

The policies aimed at reinforcing and developing both material and non-material networks are of course flanked by policies aimed at enhancing the urban _pole" of the _dumbbell" that is represented by the linear city of the Brenta Riviera and its historical, settlement and landscape systems.

Strategy and results of the plan

The analysis of the features contributing to the excellence of this area, of its homogeneous qualities and those that characterise specific areas and of its common problems and potentials, has revealed the need for wide-spread planning to face the strategic choices that will be required to strengthen the Padua  Venice metropolitan system while restating the principle of environmental sustainability of development.

The urgency of such measures is clear: on the one hand, the risk is for the system to lose competitiveness; on the other, the risk of hindering the establishment of a co-ordinated layout linked to a number of metropolitan-class functions and services, while fully respecting the rules aimed at conserving historic, landscape and natural/environmental values.

The project that is being considered aims at overcoming a strategy whose sole aim is that of _mapping constraints" and to consider other issues such as the potential provided by development and the vocations and centres of excellence of acknowledged metropolitan status that shall be enhanced as specific features within an integrated system.

It has evidently been necessary to face issues whose geographical impact is _different sized", and that consequently need to be faced:

• at policy level by launching co-planning procedures that can overcome conflict and overlapping competencies that risk leading to paralysis, using the plan as a networking tool and opportunity;

• at the level of urban procedures by introducing specific in-depth analysis of the details of a number of _strategic areas and projects" flanking the traditional strategies characterising wide-spread planning (environmental protection, large infrastructure networks, etc.).

An example is provided by the central position of Venice Airport whose structure has been recognised as being at the centre of a potential development scheme leading to the establishment of a real Airport Citadel whose function is to provide order and emphasise regional- and national-level functions and services.