National strategy of inland areas and optimal civil protection areas: a possible synergy for increasing territorial resilience
di Nicola Berni – Regione Umbria
Italy is characterized by towns, rural areas and smaller clusters linked by a solid network of relations, and larger cities, attracting people thanks to their wealth and public services. Remote rural areas have been facing a period of abandonment in favor of urban ones, with a decline in essential services. These areas, however, contain much untapped natural and human capital: intervention targeted at safeguarding, rehabilitating, and revitalizing inner areas has been deemed necessary, in order to overcome the urban/rural dichotomy and put a new perspective on the concept of service acceptability. These areas cover 59% of the Italian territory and are home to 23% of national population. Italian strategy “SNAI” is aimed to reversing the depopulation and marginalization of these areas, hinging on two key economic policy assets: improving personal services and triggering local development projects. In this context, since 2018, the new Italian civil protection law has introduced a new approach to supra-municipal civil protection planning and governance: the “optimal territorial areas”, aimed to overcome the simple “emergency management” concept by enhancing “peacetime” activities and prevention and resilience aspects. The aim of the work is to seek synergies between these two different worlds, for the increase of territorial resilience.
