Can post-mining territories turn into landscapes in motion? A spatial strategy to build a (landscape) reputation for a hidden area in Tuscany, Italy

Post-mining territories constitute a structural component of contemporary urbanisation processes. They are often located in post-urban areas and create new landscapes of abandonment. Sometimes they are stigmatised as landscapes characterised by unsustainable development and, therefore, an obstacle to the transition to a post-carbon society. This paper contributes to the debate on this question and shows a tentative approach to the reparation of post-mining territories through a (designed) strategy that re-builds the territorial, landscape and social reputation of a site, which has been exploited by ENEL (an Italian multinational energy company) for almost 50 years. This site, named Santa Barbara, is located in a hidden area of central Tuscany (Italy), in the upper Arno Valley (Valdarno Superiore), in-between very well-known branded landscapes such as Chianti (or Chiantishire as named by British citizens who moved in this area to spend holidays in late 20th Century), the small city of San Giovanni Valdarno and other prestigious Tuscan landscapes. This area is profoundly intertwined with the urbanisation processes of the greater metropolitan area of Florence, but, at the same time, it is a mono-functional territory not visibly urbanised. Today, this territory is characterised by a peculiar landscape that seems to be dominated by the ‘motion’ of land. Hills, paths and trajectories of uses, which have been changing over the past decades and even in recent years, have inspired the landscape repairing strategy. Crucial to this strategy is the role played by the company responsible for the deterritorialisation of this site and that in 2017 launched the ‘Future-e Project’. This project promoted a process aimed at creating a vision for the future of the Santa Barbara ex-mining site, with local communities (institutions, local economic actors, etc.) and inhabitants. The project, already in progress, has also involved the Politecnico di Milano and the Università Degli Studi di Firenze, both called to cooperate in analysing the case study. In brief, the paper portrays the socio-territorial evolution of the Santa Barbara ex-mining site and describes a strategy of territorial regeneration aimed at revisiting the past, sharing the present and building the future with a propensity towards renewable energy sources. Central to this strategy is the landscape that becomes a social, economic, spatial and narrative driver of territorial regeneration that is sustainable and solar energy driven. In doing this, the paper investigates the crucial cooperative interplay among the private company (ENEL) and the local community, the public actor (the municipalities), and the universities involved in the design of the post-carbon future of this site.