The forms that the spatialities of logistics, production and energy are taking in Northern Italy are partial but sensitive sentinels of changes that are deeply rooted. The volume ‘Geografie Operazionali nel Nord Italia. Figurazioni e strategie spaziali’ (FrancoAngeli, 2024) attempts to identify these forms through a composite and transcalar mapping of the urban agendas, infrastructural investments, projects, plans and economic and territorial policies that mark and traverse the northern regions of the country, rendered through a ‘lens’ that refers to operational geographies. This lens puts into tension conventional readings and the borders of a northern Italy that has always been contested by them, and from which contradictions, conflicts, but also the cooperative capacities of the various actors, poised between ecological and urban issues, economic crisis and labour market dynamics, emerge. Based on the reflections in the book, the seminar will be an opportunity for a critical debate on the governance processes of the urban regions of Northern Italy, which relate to the future of the whole country.