Weaving the Net? City Leaders and Social Housing in Two Italian Cities

Since the beginning of the Nineties, the direct election of the mayor introduced a majoritarian logic aimed at making the local administrations responsible and accountable for local policy-making after the disenchantment of the role of political parties linked to the scandals of Tangentopoli (literarily, “Bribery-city”). In the years 2000, a Constitutional reform introduced a decentralisation and enhanced the conflict between the centre and the peripheries. Italian local governments thus represent an ideal setting to see how city leaders react to the crisis of financial transfer from the national government. In particular, cities have a crucial role for social housing. Given the conflictual character of these policies and the scarcity of resources exacerbated by austerity, the performance of local governments in these policies can be revealing about the capacity of local leaders to create new coalitions, to innovate and transfer knowledge, to build trust and support among different groups, but also to re-structure the network of the governing coalition in the long run, excluding local political parties and strengthening other societal actors in the so called third sector. This paper proposes the analysis of the different levels of effectiveness in social housing policies performed in two Italian cities, Turin and Florence, starting from the beginning of the Nineties to 2011. The effectiveness in social housing will be evaluated confronting the declared goals and the actual outcomes in terms of projects implemented in the two cities. The different outcomes will be explained by looking at the different characteristics of the city leadership in the two cases, according to its structure (inclusive-exclusive) and its composition (city level-multi level). The analysis is based on in depth local press release, documental analysis and semi-structured interviews aimed at the reconstruction of crucial actors and roles in the decision-making and implementation of decisions on social housing policies.