Mobility Demands and Participation in Remote Rural Areas

Although some rural areas of Italy are close to the country’s most developed regions, in recent decades they have entered demographic decline: today, these areas are characterised by very high percentages of old people and very small numbers of family members. In some mountain villages the relational web is so weak as to represent a severe form of exclusion. Increasing virtual and physical mobility is seen as an answer to depopulationand marginality. The article seeks to verify the plausibility of the idea that mobility organisation can improve the traditional policies of territorial development by placing more emphasis on the involvement of the local population in transport services. To thisend, it constructs a typology of rural areas on the basis of Kaufmann’s categories of connectivity and reversibility. These ideal types are then used to analyse the trends and chances of mobility in remote Italian rural areas.