Garden Cities 2.0 and Revitalization of Depopulated Rural Communities. A Net Positive Resource Production Approach

Abstract

The decades long ongoing demographic trend suggests that huge mass of population will continue migrating away from small rural town towards the bigger urban centers adding to the already overstressed areas ulterior demographic pressure, resulting in a set of harsh unprecedented issues. In order to overcome the challenges which the built environment is due to face – both currently and in the near future- it is mandatory to highlight and enact a whole set of policies aimed towards the increase in attractiveness of small towns and in the decentralization of urban functions to the small belt of settlement in the outskirts of the bigger urban centers. The scarcely populated small centers, which are now suffering from degradation resulting from progressive abandonment and lack of maintenance throughout the years, offer an interesting opportunity to rethink the liminal rural spaces and enact governance policies through an integrated architectural, technological, and economical approach in order to achieve an increase in the livability of the territories outside the urban centers.