Accessibility and mobility in peripheral areas: a national place-based policy

ABSTRACT

Rural and peripheral areas, however, defined, suffer from accessibility and mobility problems that challenge their liveability and potential for development. To cope with these challenges, it is necessary to acknowledge and address the spatial, societal, cultural and economic components of accessibility, with comprehensive action involving actors from various sectors at different scales. The Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas, aimed to reverse marginalization processes of rural peripheral areas with a place-based approach, is moving in this direction. This article analyses and discusses how the strategy aims to address accessibility and mobility, in principle and in practice. To this aim, document analysis of the general documents and guidelines of the SNAI and 50 local strategies is combined with qualitative insights from interviews and participant observation. The analysis shows the scope and approach of the strategy and points out a number of criticalities and pitfalls challenging its potential. The results can contribute to inform research, policymaking and planning to improve accessibility in European peripheral areas, taking stock of the potentialities and limitations of this experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Accessibility
• mobility
• peripheral areas
• rural areas
• National Strategy for Inner Areas

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Since at least the second half of last century, there have been many attempts to define and conceptualise the 'rural' and 'periphery' (Eder 2019; Gallent and Gkartzios 2019). This paper does not aim to enter the debate on the definition of peripheral and rural areas, but considers peripheral areas as they are defined in the National Strategy for Inner Areas, that is, those territories that are at a significant distance from centres offering essential services (Barca, Casavola, and Lucatelli 2014). As further described in the paper, these areas are mostly rural, hence in this case peripheral overlaps with rural, but not the other way round.

2 Nevertheless, society inherently implies spatial relations (Martens 2019), and virtual accessibility can only have a limited role.

3 The Agency for Territorial Cohesion is an Italian public agency supervised directly by the President of the Council of Ministers, established in 2013. The Agency is aimed to support, promote and assist territorial development and cohesion, plays a key role in the management of cohesion policies and provides support for the implementation of European and national programmes.

4 A detailed report on the results of interviews and participant observation would not fully fall into the scope of this manuscript. Some details on such qualitative aspects are provided in Bacci, Cotella, and Vitale Brovarone (2020) and Cotella and Vitale Brovarone (2020c).

5 For more detail on the criteria for the definition of inner areas, see Barca, Casavola, and Lucatelli (2014).

6 However, the budget per strategy varies a lot from one area to another and between northern, central and southern regions, depending on various factors, among which the criteria for the distribution and use of European Structural Investment (ESI) funds, integration with supplementary regional, local and private resources (for more details see Cotella and Vitale Brovarone 2020c).

7 The governance of the strategy is entrusted to a Technical Committee (CTAI), coordinated by the Department for Cohesion Policies of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and is composed of the Agency for Territorial Cohesion as well as a number of sectoral ministries (agricultural policies, cultural activities and tourism, education, infrastructure and transport, employment and social policy, health, environment).

8 'Le aree interne e la mobilità: linee guida per gli interventi nelle aree-progetto', available at: https://www.agenziacoesione.gov.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AreeInterne_LineeGuidaTrasporti.pdf

9 It is important to specify that, as mentioned for criticalities, digitalisation is dealt with by many areas in a dedicated section or as a sub-section of local development. The actions for digitalisation that are listed in the mobility section are those specifically related to the digitalisation of mobility services.

10 However, it must be noticed that neither tourists as target groups nor action directed to them have much relevance in terms of priority and budget. Also, it is important to remind that issues related to tourists are dealt with by many areas exclusively in the section of their strategy dedicated to local development.