Dinamiche di insediamento e patrimonio territoriale a rischio. Il caso della sotto-regione di Albenga

Starting from the post-war period, the strong agricultural component has profoundly modified the Albenga plain and its settlement structures, historically identifiable in the city of Albenga and in the settlements connected to it, as one of the most ancient Ligurian settlement environments. The intensive use of the land for agricultural purposes and then for productive and tertiary functions of the plain has determined the detriment of the more inland (in abandonment) valleys. Land take, conflicts in land use, environmental instability, abandonment of small inner villages, give back today the picture of a territory that is experiencing an environmental-settlement crisis that threatens the possibility of maintaining balanced economic and social arrangements. The settlement dynamics of the period 1971-2018 tends to highlight the constant loss of patrimonial value of the valley settlements (abandonment of the villages and shrinking of agricultural production areas, economic impoverishment of the most internal areas) is associated with the local economic cycles which led to a transition from a condition of balanced polycentrism to a dissipative dispersion.