Public, private and civic sector at the test of urban regeneration. A theme that touches all the biggest western metropolises and was also debated at domusforum, a conference organised by Domus on 30 November in the spaces of the Adi Design Museum in Milan. The aim of the annual event is to create a dialogue between the world of architecture and design, and that of the social sciences, to look towards a fairer and more sustainable urban future. One of the protagonists of the round table moderated by journalist Massimo Valz-Gris was Sergio Urbani, Director General Fondazione Cariplo. Together with him Maurizio Ambrosini, sociologist of migration, State University of Milan; Andrea Chiesi, Director and Head of Special Projects of Chiesi Group.

Urbani's speech began with an account of what is the vast horizon of initiatives carried out by Fondazione Cariplo: "we are active in the field of culture, personal services, scientific research, the environment: we do so many projects.What I am telling you about today is a small part of what we do: we have arrived at the issue of urban regeneration starting with housing. About 20 years ago, the Foundation tried to start a real estate entity with a social purpose, because the real estate market tends to create so-called market failure situations, with very heavy consequences on the most vulnerable social groups."

The general director of Fondazione Cariplo explained how the way in which the city has been transformed has changed over the years: "whereas until the end of the last century the city grew by encompassing agricultural areas, now it can no longer do so (fortunately). Now the city grows by regenerating existing parts, densifying its structure. We faced the issue of regeneration by trying to provide opportunities for housing and community development. We identified cultural projects as an important tool for urban transformation. I am talking about culture at 360°: artistic, food, housing... With networks of different subjects we try to generate new links, relationships, projects, identities. The communities we want to form are those that become something different from their communities of origin, that do not lose their roots but aspire to plurality and integration."

Sergio Urbani is aware that the Foundation is only one piece of the mosaic that needs to be complex. "Everything we do is useless if it fails to create a network, to activate people and create a broad common sense with regard to a problem," he said. The crucial role of the civic sector as the glue between the public and private sector thus emerges. "This is why we see ourselves as an enzyme that facilitates meetings, dialogues, projects. Foundations of banking origin, like us, are born from a law that in some way binds them to work with public bodies and civic sector organisations with a grant dynamic, thus supporting their projects. We cannot support companies directly, but we can ally ourselves with them in this network. The civic sector is the third pillar of our democracy: it is fundamental to activate a participative, spontaneous, bottom-up, local dynamic. Otherwise, the public and private actors struggle to enter into such a direct relationship with people. My wish for the future is that we succeed in supporting and promoting public-private partnerships, which unfortunately struggle to enter the language and planning of Italian public bodies. The Italian intellectual framework creates polarisations, while we need to better investigate this space of collaboration."