I CONTRATTI DI FIUME E LA STRATEGIA NAZIONALE PER LE AREE INTERNE: UN BANCO DI PROVA PER L’APPROCCIO PLACE-BASED IN ITALIA

Abstract

In the majority of European regions, territorial inequalities between main urban nodes and marginal territories are raising concerns and pose serious development challenges. Phenomena such as ageing, depopulation and impoverishment of inner areas, and the polarization of social, economic and cultural opportunities in urban areas are often the result of place-neutral, spatially-blind approaches and hinder the European objective of social, economic and territorial cohesion. Since a decade, the European Union is pushing towards more place-based approaches to development in order to face these challenges. The experiences of the River Agreements and the National Strategy for Inner Areas are relevant examples of the Italian take on the EU place-based logics, combining bottom-up and top-down logic within multilevel, multiactor and multifund context-sensitive processes. This contribution discusses the main features, potentials and limitations of the two approaches, aiming to contribute to the debate and policies for the sustainable reactivation of marginal areas and rebalance of territorial inequalities.