There are cities that have stopped making promises and started taking action. Fifteen medium-sized and large cities — from Aarhus to Warsaw, from Barcelona to Stavanger — demonstrate that effective, prudent and inclusive urban management is not a utopia, but a verifiable reality. This book explains how these cities operate without rhetoric or propaganda, drawing on verifiable data, operational projects and concrete examples. Written without sector-specific jargon, the book is accessible to both professionals and interested members of the public, offering examples that are geographically, climatically and administratively close to home. These are neither utopian ideals nor visionary projects. They are initiatives already in operation, often at modest cost, and replicable in similar contexts. The book does not celebrate wealthy cities, but those that have set clear priorities and pursued them consistently. It is a useful, well-researched, narrative-driven and European book. It speaks to those who govern, those who plan, those who teach and those who live there.

Pino Bruno is a journalist and writer. He has worked as an editor at ANSA, a war correspondent for RAI in Iraq, Somalia and the Balkans, and deputy editor-in-chief at TGR; for Rai Tre, he conceived and edited the programmes ‘Levante’ and ‘Est-Ovest’. He specialises in technological innovation, the digital society and urban models. He divides his time between Bari and Copenhagen, where he explores issues relating to urban functioning and the quality of public infrastructure. His publications include Le parole della Rete (Mondadori Informatica, 2001), Il cittadino digitale (Mondadori Informatica, 2002), Mouse? No grazie (with Marco De Salvo, Mondadori Informatica, 2004) and Dolce Stil Web (Sperling & Kupfer, 2009).