The Municipality of Urbino is the institutional body in charge of the city government. This includes the management of public buildings and city infrastructure, local police and commercial licensing, building authorisations and monitoring activities, tourism regulations, educational and cultural institutions. The Municipality of Urbino is also a member of the Italian Association of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and over the last years has been involved in several international co-operation projects, in which it has further developed and shared with partners its urban planning and cultural tourism expertise.

Tasks and activities

• Leader for the Pilot action “World Heritage Learning Quest – Cultural Storytelling for the Local Community and the Young"
• Development of World Heritage Learning Quest for Urbino (Pilot action 5);
• Evaluation of the pilot action trial

Local / regional Context

The City of Urbino is located in the Province of Pesaro-Urbino which is the largest of the four provinces of the Marche region. The Province, like the whole region, enjoys a low unemployment rate (4.3% compared to a national rate of about 8%) as it does well in service industries and manufacturing, though the share of the agricultural sector is below the national average.

After the Second World War the City of Urbino, which is located about 30 km from the Adriatic coast and major axes of traffic, was rather neglected. But measures were taken for its regeneration and re-population, particularly of its historic centre. Among the most important pillars of the regeneration efforts were the university and the tourism sector.

Today, the university has 20,000 enrolled students while the city has local population of 15,500.  Today, the university has 20,000 enrolled students while the city has local population of 15,500.. The university is highly innovative, leads many regional and international projects, and is a vital part of the regional economy and cultural life. It uses buildings in the old town as well as it has colleges on a nearby hill which also house many of the students.

The second and ever more important socio-economic pillar is the tourism sector. Urbino has seen an increase in visitor numbers from 1,295,855 in 2002 to 1,298,088 in 2005.

While presenting these visitors a well-preserved and consciously managed cultural heritage environment, Urbino will also have to develop and promote new tourist products, e.g. creative cultural courses and events related to the arts & humanities, music, culinary culture, and other topics of interest.

Contact

Tarcisio Porto (Project Manager)
Tel.: +39 0722 30 92 81
etomasetti@studiotomasetti.com
www.comune.urbino.ps.it