Enhancement of Italian small towns and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan: the experience of smart villages

Rural depopulation and marginalisation is an increasing phenomenon across Europe. Rural areas make up almost half of the entire EU territory and over 20% of the total population live there. Most of these territories are considered fragile due to the lack of an efficient infrastructures and services network, and because they are characterized by weak economic systems and also by a growing digital divide. However, these contexts are able to offer numerous opportunities, especially from a sustainability perspective. The ecological and digital transition process, together with the experience deriving from the pandemic emergency, has triggered major transformations in rural areas and beyond. With the push towards smart working, distancing and travel restrictions, the health emergency has upset the social and working habits people who have returned to looking at rural areas and villages, not only as a destination for holidays outside the city, but also as a lifestyle choice: green job opportunities (circular economy), larger living spaces, higher quality of life. In this perspective, under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), the Italian Government has allocated over 1,600 billion euros for the regeneration of the rural landscape and the attractiveness of villages at risk of depopulation. In this framework, the paper intends to analyze some projects financed under the National Villages Plan of the PNRR, focusing particularly on the experience of smart villages and community cooperatives as innovative models adopting a bottom-up approach and based on the centrality of community in local development processes. The contribute aims to identify methodologies and practices through which to build sustainable growth paths and able to improve the quality of life in these contexts.