AttivAree

AttivAree

60% of the Italian territory consists of smaller, often very small towns and villages. The reasons are mainly due to the specific topography of the land, but also to history, resulting over time in complex settlement dynamics. 
For the most part, these centres are distant from urban areas, nestled among mountain reliefs or spread off the plains: places that once, when people lived almost exclusively on agriculture, were flourishing and populated, but which with the reversal of the economic situation have begun to undergo progressive depopulation. People have begun to migrate towards cities in search of more viable and comfortable work and life opportunities. 

The abandonment was slow and inexorable, initially affecting the most isolated hamlets, followed by villages and finally entire areas: the marginal areas. Distant lands, both geographically (because they are far from the most heavily developed urban centres and organised in terms of services and opportunities) and from a cultural point of view, due to their ‘distance’ from a social evolution that has radically changed people’s needs. 

These were times of transition conditioned by an economic recovery that seemed unstoppable and which took people to the cities, where a better life was on the cards, far from rhythms dictated by nature, “calluses on the hands” and the “phases of the Moon”. 

All this, however, has now changed and a new phase has begun. Within a couple of generations, a new awareness of the relationship with the land has arisen, and people learned in technology and knowledge that makes the difference return (backwards) to tread in the footsteps of their forerunners who started off in the same places… 

In rural areas and villages scattered throughout Italy, the spotlight and hope have now been re-ignited. There is a renewed focus on these locations as ideal bastions that have preserved our history, representing – with their unique environmental, cultural and social attractions – an important part of our heritage. 
A market now also exists, with promise and preparedness to leverage this heritage, which must therefore be systematised and looked at in a new way, to transform what was once a reason for abandonment into a resource and to transform what has been handed down and has remained in people’s experience. 

This look at the unexpressed potential of these areas has encouraged Fondazione Cariplo to promote AttivAree, the cross-sectoral program that aims to reactivate marginal areas in the Foundation’s catchment area and increase their appeal towards residents, potential investors and the relevant urban hubs, by leveraging the resources of the communities. 

Objectives  

The watchword is regeneration of local areas through a process of change that favours social, cultural and economic growth, to be achieved by: 

• encouraging participatory processes 
• enhancing the role and skills of the third sector 
• adopting cross-sectoral approaches that integrate environmental, social, cultural, economic and research opportunities 
• developing fruitful interactions between inland and urban areas 
• reusing existing buildings that do not involve further land consumption. 

 Local areas  

The AttivAree programme is funding two projects for the “renaissance” of inland areas selected based on the project ideas submitted by 11 local areas in Lombardy and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola during the call for proposals phase that ended on 30 June 2016. The projects, which cover the inland areas of the Oltrepò Pavese and the Trompia and Sabbia valleys in Brescia province, have grasped the idea of the development and structured consolidation of an imaginary bridge to the city and the larger urban centres, not in terms of subordination or loss of identity but of complementarity and exchange of know-how and services. Likewise, they have shared a reinterpretation of the role of agriculture in more modern environmental, social and scientific terms. 

Projects