Fragility as a condition: the landscape perspective

Abstract

Fragility is the outcome of a set of aspects related to and dependent on environmental, social, economic, political and institutional factors that require specific interpretation skills and novel operational attitudes (Chiffi and Curci, 2019) and that can manifest themselves in very different situations, places and environments. Fragility can characterise isolated environments, with resources that appear scarce or non-existent, or with a strong imbalance with respect to neighbouring and competing places that conversely appear dynamic and robust; it also characterises abandoned places or, on the contrary, those subject to the wear and tear of excessive pressures, as well as places exposed to known or unexpected risks. Therefore, they can all be fragile: the inland areas of the Apennines; abandoned Alpine valleys; many intermediate territories of the Po Valley and the valleys and plains of southern Italy; the coasts of unauthorised building and environmental degradation; the slopes exposed to serious instability phenomena; some suburbs or historical centres; large monofunctional settlements affected by abandonment and fragmentation, by the impoverishment of the social fabric and by conflicts. 1 But fragilities can also emerge and become evident in very robust, central and accessible places, affected by dynamic and seemingly vigorous economies: in the inner suburbs of a metrop-1