(Sixth Power) – Rimini – 10 June 2024 – Small but “giants” in terms of history, beauty, traditions and commitment to the ecological and energy transition. We are talking about the small municipalities of Italy – there are 5,526 in Italy where 9,687,000 citizens live – but today they are increasingly threatened by depopulation and demographic decline.
In the last 23 years – from 2001 to 2024 – the municipalities with less than 5 thousand inhabitants have gone from 5,836 to 5,526 (-5.3%), the population has also decreased from 10,590,000 to 9,687,353 (-8, 5%). To face this negative trend, small municipalities must start again from young people and the active population, those ranging from 15 to 65 years old, and from those opportunities that are still not fully exploited today.
Out of 9,687,353 citizens living in small villages, 62.5% are made up of this population group between 15 and 65 years old who will determine the future of these places. The remaining 12.2% from young people (up to 14 years old) and 26.1% from elderly people (from 65 years old).
Taking stock of the situation, with data in hand, and above all indicating the “route” to follow was Legambiente which with the dossier “Borghi Avvenire, trends and opportunities to stop depopulation and invest in future scenarios”created on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of “Loving Italy well”, his campaign dedicated to small municipalities, launched his proposal: “What is needed is a national plan, a ‘Next Generation’ for small municipalities, which has the active population of small municipalities as its protagonist and which leverages a package of 6 opportunities to work on”. That is, the opportunities: energy, housing, tourism, university villages, smart working and agriculture which, if implemented, could bring benefits especially in terms of employment and vitality.
The dossier “Villages of the Future” was presented in Rome to celebrate “Loving Italy”, the campaign dedicated to small municipalities promoted by Legambiente with the patronage of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, Ministry of Tourism, ANCI, UNCEM in collaboration with CHINT and ENEL , and of the Promoting Committee (among the members Symbola, Kyoto Club, Most Beautiful Villages in Italy, Federparchi, Third Sector Forum, Touring Club, and Unpli), which has been in the internal areas for 20 years, collecting over 8 thousand members over the years.
“Loving Italy” (the image of the poster is in the photo above) is the event on Italian villages that Legambiente, thanks to the collaboration with ENEL and CHINT together with a vast Promoting Committee composed among others of Anci, Uncem and the Conference of Presidents of the Regions and Autonomous Provinces, together with many institutional, social, cultural and economic, between Federparchi, Third Sector Forum and Touring Club, has been organizing for twenty years to enhance the Italy of Small Municipalities.
This year for the initiative “Loving Italy” – which took place from 31 May to 2 June – squares throughout Italy celebrated the small Italian municipalities, custodians of the country’s traditions, history and beauty, capable of innovating and competing, ready to give legs to the ecological transition, a greater environmental, climate and social justice.
Over one hundred (144) events scheduled. Among these: May 31st in Pertosa (SA), Gemmano (Rimini)Altidona (FM) the Mayors of small municipalities have signed the “Pact for the future of small municipalities”, making the commitment to implement settlement policies in front of a newly adult who will be given a copy of the Italian Constitution.
“Small municipalities – declares Stefano Ciafani, (in the picture) national president of Legambiente – they need more systemic policies, specifically aimed at young people and residential communities with a commitment to the coming decades and these generations, otherwise the bet will only be won for some more visionary and capable municipality. It is necessary to invest in urban regeneration but also in social innovation with new personal services, new living models and tailor-made digital citizenship services, new forms of work-based residential living based on the green economy and energy democracy with renewables. In these twenty years of “Love Italy”, we talked about the challenges, the good practices but also the many problems that concern the internal areas. The allocations provided by the PNRR for small municipalities and those for CERs represent an important step, but there is still a lot to do to overcome the resignation of statistical trends and build new opportunities for small municipalities today”.
As of 1 January 2024, there were 5,526 small Italian municipalities, i.e. those with a population equal to or less than 5,000 inhabitants, out of a total of 7,901, or 69.9% of the total. Among the Italian regions, Piedmont is the one that hosts the highest number of small municipalities, with 1,045 out of a total of 1,180 municipalities, followed by Lombardy, 1,032 out of 1,504 and Campania, which has 344 small municipalities out of a total of 550.
Valle d’Aosta is the region with the highest percentage of small municipalities out of the total, 73 out of 74, with Aosta alone exceeding the number of 5,000 inhabitants, but there are 15 regions with over 70% of municipalities below the 5,000 inhabitants in the composition of their perimeter
administrative. 73% and 52% of the regional population live respectively in regions such as Valle d’Aosta and Molise, but over 30% of the inhabitants also live in Trentino Alto Adige, Basilicata and Calabria.
He is alone Emilia RomagnaLazio, Tuscany and Puglia have a percentage lower than double figures with the latter having 5.6% of the population in small municipalities.
 signed the ‘Pact for the future of small municipalities’){kind=link}