Revitalization Strategies for Inner Areas in Italy: Constraints and Opportunities from an Analysis of Best Practices

The revitalization of inner areas is a significant issue in the field of spatial and economic planning for sustainability and ecological transition. The settlement model based on the predominance of metropolitan areas has long shown its vulnerability in environmental, functional, economic, and socio-cultural terms. Strategies of revitalization and repopulation of inner areas can contribute to the construction of a better territorial arrangement because they structure a new reticular and polycentric settlement system in dynamic equilibrium with the natural resources present in the area of reference; they can be an opportunity to reorganize living according to “proximity” criteria; they can offer opportunities for maintenance of the rural territory, preserving its biodiversity and preventing hydrogeological and hydraulic risk; they contribute to the protection of essential heritage values. For some years now, a wide range of initiatives aimed at pursuing, among others, the above objectives have been activated in inner areas by institutional or bottom-up initiatives. This paper presents the outcomes of a study conducted as part of the research project “Regenerating Cultural Landscapes of Inner Areas in a people-centered perspective” carried out by a multidisciplinary team of the University of Florence, involving researchers from the departments of architecture, economics, and educational sciences. In particular, the paper focuses on one of the first tasks of the project, namely the critical analysis of best practices related to regeneration projects in inner areas in Italy. The article presents the original analysismethodology developed for this research that produced a matrix of meta-criteria and criteria for selecting and evaluating best practices, which can also be used in other research contexts. Next, the article focuses on a selection of four best practices that were analyzed in more depth and summarizes the main findings regarding design strategies, highlighting limitations and perspectives for better regeneration of inner areas.