This study looks at the Marche Region trough the category of ‘local system’, paying attention to the relational densities that have been emerging during the past decades. On adopting this perspective one draws to the conclusion that the Marche Region’s social and economic processes, as well as its evolutionary potential, are concentrated in a limited number of ‘intermunicipal territorial systems’ with the nature of cities. As suggested in this study, these systems have to be regarded as the Marche Region’s ‘new cities’.

The formation of intermunicipal systems – a phenomenon that characterizes non only the Marche Region but also most of the Italian Regions – arose from processes of ‘territorial coalescence’: a progressive intensification of relationships among agents operating in the territories of contiguous municipalities that has transformed the single municipalities in parts of an integrated territorial system.

By interpreting the territory of the Marche Region in terms of 11 urban systems (‘cities in nuce’) that arose from territorial coalescence processes, one can understand the urban dimension of this Region, a feature that would not emerge if the regional territory were conceptualised in terms of municipalities. Moreover, one can understand the relevance of these urban systems for the Marche Region’s economy – a relevance that appears even stronger from a dynamic perspective and if one looks at the evolutionary potential of the Region. As a matter of fact, the 11 intermunicipal systems identified in this study have played a crucial role in the Marche Region’s economic development during the past five decades. They constitute its main nodes, in which one can expect the regional economic process will continue to concentrate.

This study was conducted in 2010 on behalf of the European Investment Bank

final report:

Sustainable Urban Development in the Marche Region, European Investment Bank, Ancona, 2010, pp. 1-79 [928 KB]

research

A.G. Calafati, "Sistemi locali: esercizi di identificazione", in L. Malfi e D. Martellato (a cura di), Il ruolo del capitale nello sviluppo locale e regionale, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2002

A.G. Calafati, F. Mazzoni, Città in nuce nelle Marche. Coalescenza territoriale e sviluppo economico, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2008, pp. 1-219

A.G. Calafati, Economie in cerca di città, Donzelli Editore, Roma 2009, pp. 1-150