The “Unsustainable” Fascination of the Hamlets. Firsts Data and a Reflection on the Competition Announcement “Attrattività dei borghi storici”

Abstract

The essay focuses on the results of the strategy “Attrattività dei borghi storici” (Historical small centres attractiveness), funded by the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC) within the resources allocated by the European Parliament (Next Generation Europe program) for the National Plans for Recovery and Resilience of the member states (PNRR). The essay presents the first, mainly quantitative results of the initiative which, even if the experience is still ongoing, offers the opportunity to reflect on the new tendencies in Europe towards the policies for social cohesion and social inequalities decrease. As it is well-known, these policies have the main purpose of rescuing inner territories at risk of abandonment looking at them as important reservoir of resources to be revived rather than “places to be saved”. After a general framework of the topic in the first part, the essay then analyses the results of the so-called “Bando Borghi” whose main characteristics are synthetically described in the second part of the paper. In particular, in the essay the results of the socalled “Linea B”, addressed to the small towns with less than 5000 inhabitants, are examined. The analyses is based on the quality of the project that were presented, but also on three parameters: the participation, the resources allocation, and the distribution of the selected projects in the national territory. Some final reflections about the initiatives conclude the paper.