Walkability as a tool for place-based regeneration: the case study of Iglesiente region in Sardinia (Italy).

The paper aims at exploring an extension of the concept of walkability to the rural contexts, focusing on the case study of the territory of Iglesiente, in Sardinia (Italy). The walkability paradigm is an operational framework of increasing interest in the field of urban planning, due to the intrinsic ability to read, in an innovative way, the accessibility approach and the mobility in the city between urban facilities. Nevertheless, it remains an open and slightly explored topic in rural and low-density contexts. The territory of the Iglesiente has a patrimony of nature and history of great interest for the peculiar relationship between the environmental and anthropic components related to the past mining activity: the city followed the production in the places where the mineral resources were present. Settlements in the Iglesiente area today appear poorly organized and fragmented both on the territorial and urban scale. In particular, each of the villages, which has undergone the strong impulse to grow by mining production, today shows an unresolved relationship with the places that were once dedicated to production, this even if many mining sites after long years of oblivion have recently restored and opened to the touristic fruition. The objective of this article is to focus the research on the inversion of the relationship between mining towns and places of production, rethinking and adapting the interpretative categories of walkability to rural contexts. The definition of paths inspired by the criterion of walkability to re-establish a relationship between Iglesiente area settlements and restored mining sites as urban facilities, appears to be a point of interest for a new interpretation of urban quality.