Slow-Mo Territories. Resilient qualities and dynamic metabolism of the Marche inner areas Maddalena Ferretti Università Politecnica delle Marche DICEA - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Architettura Email: m.ferretti@univpm.it
Maria Giada Di Baldassarre Università Politecnica delle Marche DICEA - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Architettura Email: mariagdibaldassarre@gmail.com
Caterina Rigo Università Politecnica delle Marche DICEA - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Architettura Email: c.rigo@pm.univpm.it
Abstract Decentralized living models in peripheral areas are being investigated as a potential response of spatial design disciplines to actual societal challenges and as an opportunity to re-activate often marginalized rural and mountain areas. These aspects are explored in the Marche inner areas within a national PRIN research involving also contexts in the Trento province, in Sicily, and in Piedmont. With the definition “slow-mo” territories the paper aims to describe areas with a slow-pace metabolism proving that this condition is not necessarily less dynamic than the one of urban centers, but it offers other opportunities of transformation. Like in a slow-motion movie, where the story unfolds gradually, lingering on details to create the atmosphere, and thus allowing a deeper understanding of the subject, “slow-mo” territories have qualities that cannot be entirely appreciated with a fast experience. Integrated policies of spatial development combining resources of the building and settlements’ structure with the ones linked to natural spaces and landscape, to infrastructure and services, to complex productive systems should be implemented to unveil the “slow-mo” territories’ potentials. This refers not only to tourism, but also calls for shared actions with local communities and actors. According to this line of argument, the paper aims to address a possible methodological path for the exploration and consequent adaptive transformation of the Marche decentralized inner territories in the regional pilot area of the Italian Strategy for Inner Areas. Parole chiave: slow territories, resilience, metabolism
1 | Introduction In recent years inner areas have raised to a significant relevance in the scientific debate of spatial disciplines both at national and European level. Even more so during the recent pandemic, when peripheral areas have shown to be unexpectedly prompt to respond to the basic needs of local communities (social relations, quality of space and living, access to basic services), but at the same time they have manifested their structural weaknesses (digital divide, inaccessibility). If from one side landscape and identity values, as well as networks–of communities, of production, of supply chains–have provided structural support during emergency, on the other hand abandonment and structural decline remain inevitable critical issues of these areas. Proximity in inner areas can be seen in its ambivalent meaning. It may signify social welfare and vicinity provided by the intimate dimension and the history of these towns, but at the same time it relates to the necessity of reconnecting these marginal areas to larger territorial constellations where their social, productive, and cultural dynamism can be better valued, rediscovering closeness and accessibility through old and new infrastructures and networked systems. This paper aims to stress both these dimensions of proximity–the qualities and the challenges referred to this idea–in order to highlight that the slow pace of inner areas doesn’t imply an absence of movement, but it is instead a
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Resilienza nel governo del territorio. A cura di Brunetta G., Caldarice O., Russo M., Sargolini M. Planum Publisher e Società Italiana degli Urbanisti, Roma-Milano 2021 | ISBN: 978-88-99237-31-8 | DOI: 10.53143/PLM.C.421
