Finding spaces for innovation in regional planning practices through enabling and contrasting actions

The chapter proposes a reflection on the experience of an academic planner appointed to the executive body of the Apulia regional council, southern Italy, for ten years. It highlights some dilemmas embedded in such a difficult double role in a context characterized by an old land use planning system and huge expectation of change. In order to answer the key question of the difference that a planner in politics could make, the article does not focus on a single policy, decision or planning process, but on an area where change concerned not only planning processes and tools but also the culture of territory and planning practices. The different processes taking place in this area involved the author in a blend of enabling and contrasting actions. They disclose how the author interpreted her role in politics, as involving continuous direct interactions with local municipalities and more or less organized citizens and groups, connecting top-down vision and bottom-up initiatives. This fed a new collective interpretation of ‘territory’, as an intermingling of material and social dimensions of space to be protected and enhanced through social appropriation processes for more fair and durable regional development.