Abstract

In the Italian Region Friuli Venezia Giulia, 71% of the Municipalities count less than 5,000 inhabitants, with a stop in population growth and an increase of aging trends. In the frame of the cohesion policies (National Strategy for Inner Areas – snai), three Project Areas were identified in the mountain sector. However, the presence of middle lands is even more pervasive. This term stands for marginalised contexts, outside those identified by the snai; they are dotted by natural and rural landscapes, small urban centres, and the peripheries of medium cities. Here the number of inhabitants and the functioning of services still hold on, economic crisis and abandonment have not reached their climax. Nonetheless, the risk to slip into more serious conditions of fragility is strong.

Highlights

  • Starting from the characters of marginalised contexts in Friuli Venezia Giulia, this paper presents the outputs of the activities developed in the middle lands along the river Cormor

  • In the view of the 2021–2027 EU programs, planning reflection is focusing on the variety of peripheral situations that characterise large parts of Italian urbanised contexts: in addition to the fragile and abandoned territories that are already included in the SNAI, the reflection concentrates on the outskirts of large and medium urban centres, as well as on the variety of in-between landscapes made of disconnected aggregates of rural areas and small towns2

  • This paper presents the outputs of the first investigations carried out in the middle lands along the river Cormor

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Summary

A Growing National Debate

In Italy, over the last years, there has been a rekindling of debate on territorial representations as a support to economic programs and cohesion policies [1, 2]. The classification of the Italian territory on the basis of the different degrees of accessibility to urban poles and services directed funding on some target areas in the most serious conditions of depopulation, economic crisis, hydrogeological and seismic risks1 This has opened up the possibility to start a new phase of development policies, and today SNAI’s results offer inputs to further thought and action. What emerges is a geography of different marginalised areas, punctuating the north and south of the Country, the mountains and the plains; they share problems of economic and/or demographic shrinkage, and the need to deeply reorganise the offer of basic equipment for social and health care, education and mobility Critical this representation of Italy may be, it suggests a radical shift in development perspectives for both marginalised contexts and the whole Country. A new course of public-directed policies, addressing public and private investment, and referring to an urban strategy built on national and regional scales, is strongly needed [5–7]

Marginalised Areas in Friuli Venezia Giulia
The Middle Lands Along the River Cormor
Edge Territories Back at the Centre
The River Contract as an Opportunity
Project-Oriented and Shared Representations
A Complex Ecosystem
Tourism and Well-Being
Light Infrastructural Projects for Local Development
Findings
Conclusions in Progress
Full Text
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