Ricerc@Sapienza

The setting of urban agendas is analyzed with the aim of interpreting the depoliticization dynamics of issues, actors and actions of urban policies that are caused by economic interests and actors when they use cognitive and normative resources. The main hypothesis is that the initiatives carried out by economic firms and private producers and retailers of knowledge to deal with urban problems have the effect of weakening the political connotation of public actors and actions, if not to replace them. The conclusion – based on the analysis of case-studies concerning different scales of public action – is that the forms of depoliticization analyzed make visible processes that will probably expand and get more structured.