A three-leg cultural relay race to sustainability of rural communities

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to explore the sustainable development of a local community through a series of scalable cohesive actions based on processes of maturing the concept of sustainability and strengthening the incentives for greater citizen participation. In particular, the study focuses on creating a local sustainable and attractive cultural itinerary of particular value considering current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts while combining the needs of tourists with the unique characteristics of the local communities involved. The established sustainability kernel constitutes the starting point of plan development. The plan concerns a smooth and structured transmission to the sustainable future of the community and relies on a combination of tried and tested methodologies. The optimization of the entire boot design through a disciplined approach is guided by dynamic models and appropriate service software, while approaches such as top-down, bottom-up, incentive exploitation, and technologies such as the emerging Virtual Reality technology for a realistic representation of Cultural Itinerary theme are employed. The novelty of our approach lies in the way citizens are involved in the development process of a sustainable community, avoiding the obstacles encountered in established methodologies. The results foster the discussion of a novel governance paradigm transition towards a transversal approach.