Post-Covid era and Italian historic centers: from marginality to centrality

The contemporary settlement dynamics and the intensive methods of exploiting territorial resources have progressively determined the loss of relationship between historic centers and urban-territorial context, which together with changes in use, obsolescence of mobility systems, urban voids resulting from changes in production models, as well as the territorial repercussions and reflections arising from the Covid-19 pandemic – assuming that the global emergency phase is over – determine the emergence of profound territorial imbalances. This condition is also associated with the marginalization process that increasingly affect even the oldest urban parts in Italian territories, for which, as evidenced by recent researches, the situation has profoundly changed compared to the period in which effective urban planning reforms preserving them in an emblematic way on the international scene. The current process of territorial metropolization leads to the destruction, homologation and trivialization of the cultural and identity landscapes that characterize the contemporary city and territories, dispersing a common heritage of values. This is evident, in particular, in the historic centers characterized by marginality, which experience phenomena of abandonment by the original population, increase in the average age, fragmentation of economies and de-signification of places, such as those located in the so-called inner areas. Even if there is still the presence of a cultural historic heritage that is the result of characteristics, forms and meanings clearly identifiable that are deeply stratified on the palimpsest. The historic territories and, in particular, the centers that characterize them, are threatened by new and old issues, in a generalized but often divergent way, which the pandemic has in some cases exacerbated but at the same time in others reduced: overtourism/depopulation, abusiveness/museumization, gentrification/abandonment. Phenomena that take on specific characteristics according to the physical and socio-economic frameworks and which require new, effective flexible and more current knowledge, planning and financing skills, especially in the context of a constantly evolving reference context, as the unimaginable global health emergency of the past two years has revealed. If on the one hand, in fact, “it is possible to use history to predict the future (...), no matter how many efforts we can make to predict it, the future will surprise us anyway” (Parisi, Nobel Prize in Physics, 2021). It appears necessary to reassign historical centers a central position within urban regeneration strategies, reinterpreting the historical-cultural heritage as a common good, integrating conservation and innovation, socio-economic revitalization and socio-cultural enhancement, in line with the principles advocated by the Gubbio Charter since the 1990s. This goal can be achieved by strengthening the framework of the public city to restore urban quality, well-being and social inclusion. The paper will support the reflection with the examination of case studies related to tools, and strategies, aimed at contrasting the processes underway in these contexts, which find convergence in the experimentation of integrated approaches and multi-level design implementation.