Territorial factors

After the identification of common specificities and patterns of the Mediterranean territories (Component 3 / Activity 3), partners and mainly the Piedmont region worked on the definition of territorial factors. This step was necessary to select relevant territorial indicators, directly linked to these factors.

In order to gather relevant and updated information, Piedmont partners sent a questionnaire to the other partners, asking them to apply territorial typologies to their territory and to identify priorities for each territorial category.

Territorial categories:

-          MEGA urban poles

-          Coastal urban poles

-          Inland urban areas

-          Rural areas with intensive agriculture

-          Intermediary rural areas

-          Natural and rural areas

-          Small islands and archipielagos

Thanks to the answer to the questionnaire, Piedmont region, in collaboration with the other partners, realized a report which allows the identification and selection of territorial factors.

The document proposes a very interesting definition of territorial competitiveness.

“In other words, the competitiveness of territorial systems relies as much on the local capacity to integrate foreign firms to the local structure of relationships, as on its ability to promote the internationalisation of the activities and interests of local actors. This is consistent with the general consideration that development processes in territorial systems are always affected by endogenous conditions (which include both tangible and intangible assets) as well as by exogenous conditions such as relationships or investment decisions at the various scales (Massey, 2005; Sassen, 2008). Unsurprisingly, in fact, as demonstrated by the work of Bakkevig and Jakobsen (2003), in many cases the search for territorial competitiveness went along with the search for intermediary institutions acting as facilitators between local and global interests.”

The description of the 24 factors is available in the report done by Piedmont region. It will be possible to downlaod it soon.