A place-based perspective for welfare recalibration in the Italian inner peripheries: the case of the Italian strategy for inner areas

When a large proportion of the population has problems finding schools in which the levels of education and teacher quality are equivalent to those guaranteed in larger urban centres, hospitals capable of guaranteeing essential health services (first aid; emergency; birthing; transfusions) or adequate internal and external mobility systems, the question of constitutionality and right to full citizenship constituents arise on one hand; while on the other, a vicious circle of marginality is triggered, in which demographic haemorrhage follows a process of continual reduction of these services, precluding the usefulness of any sort of development intervention. Starting from this assumption, the public policy National Strategy for Inner Areas works to guarantee the inner citizenship rights as a pre-condition to foster economic development. The article illustrates the welfare question in the Italian inner peripheries, analyzing the theory and methods of intervention of the public policy.