Sustainable Attractiveness in the Italian Apennines. A Review and Advancement Proposal

European policies have redefined attractiveness, identifying it as a factor affecting social cohesion. On this basis, researchers from various disciplines have begun to rethink the capacity of certain territories to improve their attractiveness. Attractiveness is seen at territorial level as a necessary driving force for development, progress and evolution, within increasingly complex networks capable of triggering processes of innovation, not only economic but also social and cultural. Efforts to define the concept of attractiveness have focused on urban contexts, where endogenous and exogenous forces capable of attracting large amounts of capital and investment, financial flows and specialized labor are concentrated in a context of increasing global competition. However, attractiveness is also relevant to peri-urban, rural and mountain areas. Through a positioning in territorial sciences, with the assumption of an open, multi-scalar spatial perspective that places mountains in changing internal and external relational systems, the paper discusses the idea of sustainable attractiveness with reference to mountainous spaces and places. Focusing on new ways of inhabiting mountains and the cultural, belonging and economic aspects involved, the authors ask if and when a place can be sustainably attractive. It presents a theoretical proposal, supported by empirical research based on case study in the Italian Apennines, for interpreting mountains as central rather than marginalized spaces, and a methodological framework for analyzing the process of identifying shared values within changing identities, based on the perceptions and agency of different stakeholders.