Citizen participation in the local sustainable development: the Italian metropolitan cities context

The challenges to achieving sustainable development are multiple and complex. They require profound changes in culture, lifestyle, actions, and attitudes. According to scholars and normative indications, strong collaboration between all the stakeholders in society holds a fundamental role in establishing a more equitable and sustainable society. Indeed, Italian public institutions, at the national and local levels, are increasingly aware that the sustainable transition path requires the involvement and engagement of civil society. In that sense, the participation of civil society in governance and policy-making processes aims to strengthen the relationship between local institutions and citizens, introducing a fundamental paradigm shift towards multi-level collaboration. Therefore, the paper intends to investigate the extent of public participation of citizens in strategic planning for metropolitan sustainable development (local level). The analysis, conducted from the secondary sources developed by the sample, identified the engagement practices adopted by each of the 14 Italian metropolitan cities to assess the state of the art and establish similarities and differences concerning the engagement levels found in the literature. Although almost all have undertaken a citizen engagement process, this research demonstrates that only approximately half of the sample have highly promoted engagement-intensive forms, highlighting a total lack of use of the recursive approach, in which the citizen is an integral part of sustainability strategies.