AESOP ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Session

SS_03 REPOPULATING LEFT-BEHIND TERRITORIES: POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND EMERGING PATHWAY

SS3

9 Jul 2025, 11:00

E1-02 (YTU Davutpasa Campus)

Conveners

SS_03 REPOPULATING LEFT-BEHIND TERRITORIES: POLICIES, PRACTICES, AND EMERGING PATHWAY

• Mauro Fontana (Politecnico di Torino)
• Loris Servillo (Politecnico di Torino)

2061. Infrastructuring repopulation. Regeneration of left-behind territories and construction of new housing practice.

Mauro Fontana (Politecnico di Torino)

09/07/2025, 11:00

SS 03 | Repopulating left-behind territories: Policies, Practices, and Emerging Pathway

Oral

The more the regenerative projects and experiments of paths of epopulation of the left-behind territories and mountainous areas advance, the more a fact emerges forcefully: the concrete difficulty of welcoming and accommodating, transforming them into inhabitants, the various people who today, in Italy, seem to express a growing demand for mountains.

This finding that emerges from the...

1995. Social Infrastructures for Repopulation: Learning from ‘School Zones’ in England

Dr Lucy Natarajan (Bartlett School of Planning, UCL)

09/07/2025, 11:10

SS 03 | Repopulating left-behind territories: Policies, Practices, and Emerging Pathway

Oral

Across diverse sized cities in England, School Zones are a new way to plan for districts centred on securing the next generation’s well-being in disadvantaged areas. This paper teases out lessons for repopulation from social infrastructures, which is demonstrated by such zones around public educational facilities in England. The paper builds on a recent study of ‘School Superzones’ in London...

1961. Navigating (Im)mobility and alternative development in Left Behind Areas: Insights from Valle di Viù, Italy

Astrid Safina (Sapienza Università di Roma)

09/07/2025, 11:20

SS 03 | Repopulating left-behind territories: Policies, Practices, and Emerging Pathway

Oral

Human mobility has been investigated as a key factor in the challenges faced by left-behind areas (LBAs), yet its actual capacity to drive sustainable development remains underexplored. This study critically examines the case of Valle di Viù, a mountain area in the Turin Metropolitan Area, Italy, to explore the limitations, contradictions, and potential of relying on human mobility to address...

1944. Attempting coproduction, (strategically) misunderstanding coproduction, failing coproduction? Motivations, positionalities, challenges and (concrete) experiences in coproduction processes on left-behind places in Lombardy, Italy

Dr Sara Caramaschi (DAStU Politecnico di Milano)

09/07/2025, 11:30

SS 03 | Repopulating left-behind territories: Policies, Practices, and Emerging Pathway

Oral

The newly emerging housing question is widely considered to be exclusively affecting large metropolitan regions. This is also true for Italy, where Milan – and its metropolitan region – have become the hotspot of a housing supply and affordability crisis that does not seem to mitigate in anyway. However, many peripheral areas in the region of Lombardy are experiencing high stress in their...

1943. Revitalizing the Po Valley’s margins: challenges, strategies and future prospects

Dr Sara Caramaschi (DAStU Politecnico di Milano)

09/07/2025, 11:40

SS 03 | Repopulating left-behind territories: Policies, Practices, and Emerging Pathway

Oral

Among Italy’s many "middle lands," the Po Valley’s lower plains (Bassa Padana) remain one of the least studied. This area, stretching across Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, and Veneto, has long been perceived as marginal and economically depressed. However, recent years have seen profound transformations reshaping its spatial structure, socioeconomic fabric, and collective identity.
The Bassa...