- The Lombard services plan defines operational criteria and policies designed to achieve the objectives of settlement quality and urban welfare. They are objectives which cut across the public-private relationship in the construction and improvement of settlement contexts. If quality of living in an area and the long term value of the urban asset depends on the capacity to achieve integrated development (housing, public transport and social services), then the centrality of this instrument is clear to see, with its ability to seize on local opportunities and community resources in its triple nature of a plan, a project and a programme. A number of positive experiences have developed in recent years, such as the Bergamo, Cremona and Monza plans which have introduced a new vocabulary and new ways of operating (competitions, settlement criteria, expected public performance and financial assessments) to strengthen bargaining capacities and competition in public strategies and policies.