| Abstrakt: |
The abandonment phenomenon in Italy over the past fifty years has been greatest in minor centres, directly proportional to their concentration in the various regional territories. Abruzzo and Molise are significant from this point of view. In these regions, the proportion of minor centres exceeds 90%; it includes mainly mountain villages where abandonment is the distinctive feature and reflects a widespread and fragmented phenomenon. Although barely detectable in municipal statistics, because of the agricultural and pastoral tradition, which until relatively recently had withstood economic and social ups and downs, it is seen in numerous districts and rural villages scattered throughout the territory, escaping detection in broad surveys. Both regions also continue to suffer from the aftermath of recent earthquakes: in 2002 in Molise, where reconstruction has not yet been fully completed after almost twenty years, and in 2009 and again in 2015-2016 in L'Aquila, when the Abruzzi provinces were battered again after being already severely tried and where reconstruction is still uncertain. This contribution uses statistical data and the vast literature on the subject produced over decades of research and studies on the regions, to provide a foretaste of a soon-to-be-published volume, and an update on the local situation of abandonment, analysing the causes and effects in order to consider a possible future. The occasion is valuable not only for a constructive and beneficial comparison with other Italian and foreign situations, but also to construct a dynamic, multi-scalar approach capable of emancipating itself from highly evocative one-off situations, and open to a broader scale of recovery for the entire territory and to network individual local regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
