My paper will focus on the ability of Italian cities to sustain urban change and urban identity as well, while the vocation to territorial, cultural or economic planning remains a problem. There is no relationship between sprawl with its provisional form of sociability and historical centres. Their own governance remains a problem, while no one knows how to integrate these new forms of urbanity with the old cities, getting out of idiotism characterizing closed communities. A particular quality of the places, people and government, plus an “ecological footprint” is lacking, because there is no fundamental perception of the problems and rights of citizenship which is part of. Despite the huge intellectual capital, there is no desire to protect and make it accessible to all citizens, valuing the human capital as a key productive factor and the strong link between policy and organization in the public sphere and territory conservation.