Local authorities and the Sustainable Development Goals. Towards a planning approach inspired by sustainability?

The United Nations 2030 Agenda defines the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and highlights the central role of Local Authorities in delivering sustainable, fair and inclusive development. Within this framework, and especially in Italy, local authorities can renew their centrality, as most sustainability-related issues (environmental, social and economic) are consistent with the set of public functions managed at local level. The 2030 Agenda can also be a useful opportunity for regaining an essential function, namely in building relations between levels of government and territorial stakeholders, including by contributing to the definition of common reference standards. The DUP or single planning document (Documento Unico di Programmazione) seems to be a fundamental tool in this regard, as it gives concrete form to the linee programmatiche or guidelines for the prospective plans and projects presented to the Council by the Mayor pursuant to art. 46, paragraph 3 of the TUEL consolidated text on local authorities (Testo Unico degli Enti Locali). In the light of AGENDA 2030 and the 17 SDGs, this paper analyses the DUPs (2019-2021) of the main municipalities within Italy’s 14 metropolitan cities in order to identify possible guidelines inspired by sustainability.