1172 | 885 | New Geographies for Mountain Systems: a Reticular and Polycentric Approach Applied to the pre-Alpine Context | Federica Burini
The paper analyses how the traditional geographies of center/periphery and urban/rural relationships have fueled different forms of inadequate representations of the role of mountain areas, proposing a method aimed at identifying new geographies based on a polycentric, multifunctional and reticular approach._x000D_
Mountain territories, with a strong landscape and environmental value and an ancient value in the supply of resources for the development of urban areas, are often defined as “internal” and “peripheral” starting from the principle of metric distance, travel time, functional abandonment and depopulation with respect to urban centers. The polycrisis that characterizes our era of the Anthropocene shows critical issues leading us to reflect on whether the categories and approaches used up to now for mountain systems are still adequate with respect to the challenges and opportunities of our time. The environmental crisis leads us to reconsider the centrality of mountain territories in setting up safeguards for environmental and landscape protection, allowing to guarantee a wealth of essential resources for the life of ecosystems on a regional scale (water, forest, wildlife, …). Similarly, the effects of the pandemic made it possible to rediscover the potential of the resources of mountain areas, especially by those who live in urban areas and who find in mountain systems an opportunity to reconnect with resources and rhythms partially lost. Starting from these reflections, the paper will show some research results applied to the Lombardy region in Italy, useful to abandon the vision of the fragile and remote mountain and of its monolithic representation, in order to embrace a double vision: reticular and polycentric, due to the multi-directional and multi-scalar relation. This will lead to the analysis of a “metro-mountain” systems on which to base a process of valorization for the benefit of an overall and systemic territorial development.
Federica Burini
Università degli Studi di Bergamo
ID Abstract: 885