The endless journey of a car tyre: with Ecopneus to learn how used rubber is converted into energy, football pitches, designer decor and street furniture.
A national plan for Italy’s historic villages. The aim is to promote and manage Italy’s incredible heritage of ancient villages, which are hotbeds of history, art, culture and tradition. It’s all about developing and protecting this vast cultural legacy, which faces extinction unless efforts and investments are made to revitalise the socioeconomic fabric of these tiny towns by creating jobs and attracting new inhabitants.
“This is a unique opportunity to redevelop our rural villages and their hidden artistic treasures, and more importantly to transform a lost heritage into a legacy for everyone.”
Dario Franceschini, ex-Minister of Culture
Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) was published by the national government in order to illustrate to the European Commission how the country intends to invest the funds from the Next Generation EU programme. The plan has three main pillars: digitisation and innovation, the ecological transition, and social inclusion. It also has six missions: digitisation, innovation, competitiveness, culture and tourism, the green revolution and the ecological transition, infrastructure for sustainable mobility, education and research, cohesion and inclusion, and health. The “Attrattività dei Borghi” component is specifically aimed at redeveloping small historic centres, thanks to total funding of over one billion euros, and is part of the first mission.
Tourism is the key to the vault, the lever for rebuilding economic and social growth in less-known areas, which may be off the beaten track, but are equally worthy of attention. Some corners of Italy aren't reached by the major motorways, logistics networks or 4.0 services - but that’s precisely why they hold such extraordinary wealth, set in unique, unspoilt surroundings. Boosting tourism to regenerate many small villages: redeveloping these small urban areas is a way to revitalise a sustainable form of tourism with the potential to unlock a new kind of cultural, historic, artistic and traditional legacy.
Initially, the plan will involve projects to recover the historic assets and redevelop public spaces, for example by removing the architectural barriers and upgrading the urban environment, then providing the cultural amenities that will attract tourists. Incentives will then be provided for new cultural itineraries (this might include themed activities and historic attractions) as well as guided tours. Lastly, financial support will be provided to encourage cultural and creative activities, and to promote tourism, commerce, the agrifood industry and artisanal businesses in order to kick-start the village economies and promote locally-sourced produce, traditions and crafts. The projects will see the inclusion of new amenities, infrastructure and services in the field of culture, tourism, social engagement and research. Possibilities include schools, academies teaching art or cultural trades, “diffused hotels”, artists’ residences, research centres, university campuses and care homes, as potential venues for cultural programmes, as well as residences for work-from-home families and digital nomads..
The “Villages Plan” is also a landmark opportunity for the memorandum of understanding between ANCI, Borghi più belli d’Italia, Legambiente, Unione Nazionale Pro Loco d’Italia and the Italian Touring Club: a working group which has been working for many years to promote village tourism and culture. The working group has produced a “Village Charter”. It contains a series of plans and strategies which have been widely adopted by the governments of Italy’s regions and autonomous provinces to examine applications from local authorities and select pilot schemes for “Linea A”, the front line of the NRRP investments.
In the spring of 2022, the regions and autonomous provinces nominated their villages and pilot schemes, which will cover a total of 21 projects across the country: 21 Borghi Pilota.
Early last summer saw the selection of the 207 projects (out of a total of 1,800 candidates) presented by municipalities with a population of less than 5,000 for inclusion in “Line B” of the NRRP: “Local projects for cultural and social regeneration”, which received funding from the Ministry of Culture.
Vincenzo Santoro, Head of the Department of Culture, Tourism and Agriculture at ANCI, was a member of the selection committee that chose the 207 projects presented by the 289 participating municipalities. It was a long, difficult process that also uncovered systemic issues in the Plan itself, and complex problems that cannot be tackled with the available measures. The Innesti team talked to Mr Santoro.
“ANCI has an ongoing collaborative and advisory role for all the implementing measures that concern the municipal and regional authorities. Unfortunately, we weren’t asked to participate to a great extent in drawing up the NRRP Villages Plan, but we did contribute proactively to the implementation stage, and will continue to do so. We are now committed to offering specific, structured support to the municipalities to assist them with these initiatives, and this will include training and documentation.
We were immediately aware of the weaknesses in the national system, so we insisted that the municipalities should prioritise the research and formation of partnerships, especially with the implementation of Line B, the one we have the most confidence in and are working hard on, to make sure that the municipalities themselves can lead the projects and forge synergies with the other local players.
This is a taxing and complex challenge, particularly because most of the municipalities involved are fairly unstructured and very small, which means they have less expert knowledge and personnel to call on.
Forging alliances is the only way to make these projects a reality, if support and investment is slow in coming.
The role of ANCI is not a simple one. We can give indications, help to circulate, interpret and simplify the information - but the decisions and the responsibility for validating the projects lie with the Ministry.
We offer support and expertise during the difficult, complex implementation of the first phase of the project.
Small municipalities lack resources and personnel, who often have to split their time between different districts. Often, the available funding is insufficient to cover the advance payments needed to launch the project. These are critically important issues.
The timing of the announcement and closure of the call for applications has drastically limited the possibility of accepting all the applications and fully understanding the requirements, conditions and steps to be followed, and the procedures are time-limited and binding”.
We asked Vincenzo Santoro what he sees as the driver behind this regeneration aimed at repopulating and revitalising Italy's small villages, and for his view on the conditions that will make the plan a success.
“First of all I'd like to mention a technical definition that I see as being critical to the success of this call for applications. You can’t keep talking about “municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants” as if they were all identical with the same problems. That’s not the case. There is no way you can put Courmayeur on the same level as Santa Lucia del Mela (Messina), just by considering the score they obtained in the selection phase.
The answer is a complex one.
Some villages have to struggle for survival. My hope is that the funding will secure projects that will keep a minimum level of essential services to allow the village to survive - and who knows, perhaps even redevelop, one day.
If structural, systemic problems have brought us to this situation, it’s clearly impossible to reverse the current trend in demographics and social transformation. We can’t stop that trend, only delay it - and even then, only in certain places under certain conditions, not all of which depend on or can be managed by humans.
For other villages, it's a question of developing the tourism offer to broaden the target and raise the quality of the accommodation and amenities. Each village has its own issues and its own potentials - which can only be exploited by close and proactive cooperation between the public and private sectors.
Changing or speeding up a flow is one thing - creating it from zero is a completely different matter.
Some areas can be enriched and regenerated in terms of the available housing, employment, cultural and recreational offer. Young people have to find a reason to stay, to refurbish or build local industries or come up with new, exciting ideas for the local culture, services and market. I believe there are possibilities, but I have many reservations.
The strong interest in the development of culture, natural heritage, food and wine is certainly a spark that might inject new life into weakened economies.
Every town and village in Italy is a cradle of culture, history and traditions whose amazing stories are waiting to be told. But making an economy out of all this - that’s a different matter”.
The endless journey of a car tyre: with Ecopneus to learn how used rubber is converted into energy, football pitches, designer decor and street furniture.
Eco-friendly urban evolution: building a model for cities that learns from the past and works like an ecosystem.
