DEPOPULATION OF SMALL URBAN CENTERS CULTURAL LANDSCAPE AS RESOURCE FOR LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Depopulation of small urban centres and inner areas is a widespread issue in Europe and extra-European areas, with growing increases in territorial, social, productive imbalance and obsolescence of values of local identity. The abandonment of inner lands leads to their degradation due to lack of maintenance practices, causing, especially in Italy, the potential loss of cultural landscape identity (small villages, rural landscapes, agro-food traditions). The issue had become so critical at European level that it led to defining specific programs to contrast it. This essay aims to show the cause of this issue, the strategies for the solution and the experiments done, through a multifunctional and multi-relational approach, where the Cultural landscape assumes a significant role.