Alternative Models of Urban Development in Frontier Regions: The Case of Friuli, Italy

Abstract

Compared to earlier industrial development in other western nations, the process of that in Italy has been particularly slow, quite peculiar in its sequence of stages, and extremely differentiated at the regional level. On the basis of empirical research conducted over the last twenty years, the analysis of the Friuli—VeneziaGiulia case shows how the diffused pattern of industrialization came about, with what internal and external factors it was related, and what were the changing functions of the frontier area in the course of its development. If we accept the theoretical possibility that there are multiple paths to economic development, and that all areas do not follow similar stages, we should not always expect the same type of end result in the competition between alternative patterns of territorial organization of economic activities, either within the same country or among different ones. There is no ‘one best’ way to achieve development and no final convergence of territorial models. We have much more to learn from diversity and differentiation as factors of development, than from trying to force the same standard reading on every case.