Rural Slow Routes as Connectors of Local Communities for the Promotion of Place Identity

Abstract

European, national, and regional policies have promoted slow routes in recent decades. This paper aims to define a multi-scale method to use these routes to promote the identities of rural places. The method develops (i) a GIS-based network analysis to define the boundaries of the service area of the route and then (ii) a participatory strategy to promote its rural identity. Furthermore, this paper studies the quality criteria for slow European routes (iii) to define quality criteria specifically for rural slow routes and to connect the case study to the broader European network. The results show that the European certification standard of EuroVelo is a valid document to evaluate the quality of slow routes in rural contexts. The case study is a slow route along the Trasimeno lake (Italy), 61 km long, called the Trasimeno ring. The service area of the route has a surface of 325 km2 and is defined as the surface that can be reached with detours from the route not exceeding 5 km along rural roads with low traffic (max 2000 v/d) and gentle slopes (maximum gradient of 15% and a cumulative elevation change for every kilometer of the road lower than 50 m). The participatory process was developed for one municipality (15.35% of the service area) with 326 km of rural streets and 35 activities linked to agriculture. In total, 80% of the rural stakeholders participated in building an online collaborative map to promote the area. The results show that rural stakeholders evaluate collaborative maps as an effective strategy for encouraging tourists and inhabitants to discover, use and respect rural place identities.