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Thun, Switzerland. Informal (and later commercial) transformations of industrial blights into recreational and cultural areas have triggered supraregional ambitions. (Photo by Manfred Perlik)
Source publication
Nearly two-thirds of the population in the European Alps (which totals 14.2 million) lives in towns or periurban municipalities. We state that strong towns in the Alps are necessary to prevent outmigration. But these towns must be internally integrated with their hinterlands and externally integrated in supraregional networks to maintain the qualit...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... the labor market in Switzerland's capi- Thun's self-image is marked by a realis- tic view of its heavy dependence on the development of the Berne agglomeration. However, the town is attempting to increase its external orientation to counter its loss of importance ( Figure 3). Expressed as a self- assessment: "We are still independent and can play a role in supraregional markets, eg in the recreational or cultural sectors" (net- work), and "Our urban qualities can attract young professionals as residents" (supply). ...
Similar publications
Nearly two-thirds of the population in the European Alps (which totals 14.2 million) lives in towns or periurban municipalities. We state that strong towns in the Alps are necessary to prevent outmigration. But these towns must be internally integrated with their hinterlands and externally integrated in supraregional networks to maintain the qualit...
Citations
... Accordingly, formerly multifunctional cultural landscapes are subject to land-use intensification or become abandoned while urbanization increases (Price et al. 2015, IPBES 2019. This is particularly true in mountain areas like the Alps (Perlik andMesserli 2004, Mcdonald et al. 2008). ...
The concept of “cultural keystone species” (CKS) combines ecological and socioeconomic aspects and has a great potential for improving the overall success of conservation and restoration of ecosystems. In our study, we combined an ecological analysis of traditional medicinal plant species with an explorative analysis of the stakeholder landscape to understand the importance of plants for local communities. We investigate the feasibility of the CKS concept for traditional medicinal plants using the Southern Alps (Northern Italy) as a case study. Based on a comprehensive survey of traditional medicinal plants, we analyzed the habitats where they occur and their significance as CKS candidates. We applied the index of identified cultural influence (ICI). We identified some of the relevant stakeholders and their potential interest in traditional medicinal plants. From a total of 273 native medicinal species, we ranked the 10 most important CKS candidates. These comprised species with different ecology such as the herbs Achillea millefolium agg., Alchemilla xanthochlora, Arnica montana, Hypericum perforatum, Matricaria chamomilla, Peucedanum ostruthium, Urtica dioica, the shrub Juniperus communis, and the tree species Betula pendula. By merging their importance for the local communities with their occurrences in the habitats of South Tyrol, the concept of CKS can stimulate species and habitat conservation, and ecosystem restoration.
... Drawing on the " balanced double usage " of Alpine cities proposed by Werner Bätzing, this article therefore is not suggesting that one extreme is sustainable while the other is not. It is even distancing itself from a via media ( Perlik, 1999 Perlik, , 2004). Rather, by attempting to single out the institutional dimension and examining it terms of a coupled human-environmental system from an eco- social-environmental perspective, the article hypothesizes that there may be particular configurations relatively more conducive to sustainable outcomes. ...
The focus of this article is on the institutional dimension of urban dynamics, particularly on the twin processes of capitalization – defined as the transformation of a place into a capital city – and decentralization. We observe that they co-exist in several urban contexts. A study was conducted addressing the inherent level of sustainability for each configuration produced by the dynamics. This hypothesis was tested by performing a mental experiment to assess the consequences of the prevalence of one dynamic over the other. To do so, a case study was undertaken on two Italian Alpine cities – Turin and Bolzano – in order to empirically ground the experiment and compare the two conceptual models. From our analysis, both extreme centralization and decentralization seem unsustainable. The broader policy implications are clear: urban institutions must seek to control these processes by avoiding the extremes and mitigating their impacts.
Since a few decades the Alpine region is undergoing a process of economic restructuring which involves the decline of traditional heavy and manufacturing industry. This process is occurring however with less evidence and most of all with considerable delay in comparison to the surrounding lowlands. Accordingly, the management of industrial brownfield sites is expected to become increasingly relevant in the future development of the Alpine region, especially in connection to land use optimization and socio-economic well-being. This contribution intends to raise the attention on the issue of industrial fallow land in mountain areas by presenting and discussing the first results of a macro-regional quantitative survey of industrial brownfields in the Alps.
Background
There is a general agreement on the role that peri-urban agriculture can play in achieving sustainable cities. This role is particularly crucial in the Alps, which are now the scene of relevant changes, involving above all cities that are embracing metropolitan functions. These changes pose problems, first of which being the impairment of the particular relations between urban and natural processes that form the basis of not just the sustainability, but also the same identity, of the Alpine city. In fact, due to the development of processes that are highly anomalous in mountain territories, such as urban sprawl, Alpine cities run the risk of reproducing lowland urban development.
Methods
The article focuses on the way whereby the identifying traits of the Alpine city can be maintained, and not least its sustainability, pointing out that in the Alps peri-urban territories, which in many Alpine regions still present characteristics distinct from those of lowland city, can play a key role in the construction of the new urbanity suggested by the sustainable development paradigm.
Results
The peri-urban territory north of Trento, the Rotaliana Königsberg, for which a planning project was drawn up that aims to return to this territory its agro-food vocation, constitutes an evidence of the effectiveness of such approach. Remarkable aspect of the project is in the creation of a vast agricultural park that encompasses almost all this urbanized territory.
Conclusions
Finally, the conditions are summarized which allow to achieve similar results.
Keywords
Peri-urban agriculture Alpine city Multifunctional land use Planning project Sustainable city
A survey of harvesting contracts was conducted in the Alpine regions of France and Italy. The main goal was to produce a benchmark for the harvesting contract rates in the area that may guide forest owners and logging contractors when making their harvesting decisions. The sample included 443 contracts, evenly distributed between France and Italy. The mean tract size was 9.17 ha, while the mean lot size was slightly larger than 500 m³ under bark (ub). Mean removal intensity varied from 70 to 120 m³ ub ha⁻¹, depending on country and harvesting technique (i.e. ground-based or cable-yarder based). Mean contract rate was 35€ m⁻³ ub, but individual contract rates varied significantly between countries and for different harvest techniques. Regression analysis showed that contract rate was strongly affected by tree size, extraction distance and harvest technique. Contrary to expectation, neither tract size nor lot size had any effect on contract rate. This may be explained by the widespread use of mobile operations that are specifically designed for handling small lots and incur minimum relocation cost. The technical factors explored in the study could only explain 40 % of the variability in the dataset, and therefore at least part of the variability must derive from non-technical factors such as local market dynamics and national economics. The study did find significant differences between countries. In particular, ground-based operations were more cost efficient in France, and cable yarder-based operations in Italy.
Amenity migration or the movement of people to places that are perceived as having greater environmental quality and differentiated culture is a relatively new concept in the geographical literature. In that spirit, this paper seeks to encourage further discussion on the topic and its implications for understanding the development of rural communities. Building on the concepts of mobilities (Urry 2000) and lifestyle (Giddens 1991), I have proposed the concept of lifestyle mobilities "as the movements of people, capital, information and objects associated with the process of voluntary relocation to places that are perceived as providing an enhanced or, at least, different lifestyle". This paper takes a very broad view of both the lifestyle migrants themselves (e.g. entrepreneurs, exurbanites, peripatetic recreation workers, retirees) and the loci of relocation (e.g. seaside resort, mountain village, city centre, urban periphery, rural town). Drawing on recent research on migration in rural areas across a number of countries, this analysis illustrates the pervasive impacts of lifestyle mobilities in late-modern society. A concluding section interprets the recent history of rural development in North America through the lens of resilience theory and complex-adaptive system analysis. Overall the intent of the paper is to move the discussion of voluntary relocation beyond the restricted and restrictive notions of "people mobility" and "amenity" to encourage a more wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the phenomenon.
Mountain environments have been subject to a disproportionate number of disasters and their complex geo- and social-ecological systems pose significant challenges for managing risk from natural and other hazards. The evolution of disaster risk in mountain environments and the governance response to hazards and vulnerabilities is described using examples from the Himalaya, Andes, Alps and North American Cordillera. While the potential for hazardous processes always has been inherently high, the social-ecological systems have evolved rapidly from relatively discrete and isolated pockets of population, subsistence land uses, and commodity exchange to larger, diversified social structures and economies. This has magnified exposures and vulnerabilities, eroded physical and socio-economic isolation, and broadened the need for pro- and reactive risk governance both within and beyond the mountains. Needed is risk governance that: incorporates local resources and needs with those at the national and international scales, recognizes spatio-temporal dimensions and process cascades in risk, and creates the conditions for building resilience in risk-prone social-ecological systems.
The development of distributed energy systems has important environmental, social and economic implications. Local decision-making processes must be guided by a careful evaluation of the sustainability of production chains and alternative choices. The aim of this study is to explore if and how an integrated assessment can quantify the extent to which bioenergy supply chain development contributes to rural development and energy policy objectives. We applied a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) for local bioenergy development in the alpine area of Lake Como (Italy). We modeled the local bioenergy chain in 2008 and eleven scenarios considering different biomass utilizations, mechanization levels, combustion technologies, and subsidies schemes at 2020. We calculated economic, social and environmental indicators. We interpret and discuss the scenario analysis in order to support the bioenergy planning under the light of its implications for the different policy aims and concerns.
Entrepreneurship and innovation processes are important dynamics that shape the development of peripheral regions. Regional policy increasingly takes these dynamics into account when trying to foster development in non-core regions. This paper provides the foundation for understanding the role of entrepreneurship in peripheral regions. We first review general characteristics of so-called peripheral regions and their implications for fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. We then investigate the state of research on these dynamics in the context of Switzerland. Finally, we present an overview of the central findings of the papers in this special issue.
