An economic-spatial model for Inner Areas regeneration: application of Economic Base Theory to Ascoli Piceno Pilot Area.

This research work proposes an innovative planning methodology for Italy's Inner Areas, introducing a framework that integrates urban planning and territorial economy to identify socio- economic vocations and spatial regeneration opportunities in marginal territories. Such methodology is based on the revised economic base theory, spatialized and integrated with morpho- typological analyses to provide a comprehensive description of the study territory, the SNAI pilot area "Ascoli Piceno". The main results emerging from it are the following: the presence of a significant residual productive sector in the Piceno area; the poor adherence of tourism investments to the local context; the strong correlation between settlement forms and prevalent economies; the creation of a hybrid morpho-economic typology as a support system for planning; the need to integrate such reasoning into ordinary territorial governance tools. In contrast to the programmatic vocation of cohesion policies, it is proposed that such territorial development strategies be integrated into the inter-municipal urban planning of Mountain Unions, promoting regeneration—spatial, social, and economic—through local development infrastructures in the form of "third places." This approach thus restores to planning an active conformational role against spatial inequalities. The entire framework is finally applied in a pilot project for the study area, focused on three different clusters for housing rebalancing, productive innovation, and the polycentrism of services.