In these early years of the 21st century metropolitan areas are the protagonists of radical transformation processes, both from the economic and social point of view and as regards the changes in their urbanistic and architectural organisation. Some aspects of these processes are also at the centre of a debate in the media and influence the agendas of politicians and administrators on different territorial scales (from the local up to the national and European). This is the case, particularly, of transformations resulting from migratory processes and from the formation of ethnically distinct quarters; phenomena of this kind evoke problems with strong symbolic and ethico-political relevance and are therefore apt to give rise to contrasting position-taking on the part of public opinion and the political forces. Other aspects have a less ‘popular’ nature and are apt above all to fuel the discussion between scholars of disciplines that deal with the territory; thus, for example, the accentuation of spatial imbalance between the different parts of the metropolis for reasons different from ethno-cultural ones (e.g. due to social causes or to the effect of property market dynamics) has nowadays, generally speaking, less public visibility, unless these are brought into the limelight by the explosion of striking forms of conflict (as happened, for example, in the banlieues of many French cities in the autumn of 2005). Similarly, in many urban contexts the media have devoted great attention to architectural and urbanistic reorganisation processes which have changed the face of many central quarters or ex-industrial areas, the subject of spectacular interventions often created by the most prestigious representatives of the international architectural star system. In these cases it can be observed in actual fact that to attract the attention of the media is one of the explicit objectives of these interventions, their purpose being, indeed, to increase world visibility of the city and its capacity to attract investments and visitors. 1 Vice-versa, much more modest attention is