One of the main problems facing our country is the economic and demographic decline of many territories. Areas once considered locomotives of industrial and economic development now find themselves in difficulty in relation to the major changes that have characterized the last two decades. Globalization on the one hand and concentration of activities related to the innovative service sector (technology and finance) in large urban areas on the other have produced growth marked by growing inequality. To this paradigm shift only part of the economic system has been able to find an adequate response.
For years, Italy's industrial districts had been identified as a sustainable model of economic and social development to be proposed internationally. Today it has become for many the emblem in difficulty in interpreting new growth trajectories. That dense and widespread productive fabric has gradually unraveled. There is no shortage of local champions. So many medium-sized enterprises have expressed high dynamism over the past two decades, strengthening their competitive position internationally. In the face of these successes, we have witnessed a weakening of the local industrial and economic fabric.
This new situation has generated widespread discontent. Often real resentment. The decline appears irreversible to many and prompts more or less pronounced forms of nostalgia ("it was better when it was worse").
In the face of these critical issues, the responses so far deployed by economic policy have oscillated between forms of aid to individual enterprises (micro) and large structural interventions such as the NRP (macro). These are both important interventions and will certainly produce some utility. What has been lacking so far is a vision capable of looking at contexts to design their territorial regeneration. It is difficult to think that a country as diverse as Italy can solve this problem through a one-size-fits-all solution. It is a priority to figure out how to reactivate original paths of economic growth in areas now in difficulty, possibly within a short to medium-term time horizon.
Fortunately, the problem is not just Italian. The scientific literature in economics has long tried to address the variety of growth paths in local and national contexts. It is about understanding how innovation works in reality, paraphrasing a successful book by Dan Breznitz (Innovation in Real Places, also reference reading for OECD). Not everyone necessarily has a Silicon Valley under their house, complete with start-ups and venture capital. On the contrary. What a solid literature on the subject teaches us is that one can play a leading international game even in mature sectors such as manufacturing.
To get territories moving again, it is essential to think in terms of value ecosystems. Dynamic enterprises are essential. But they are no longer enough. Thriving territories need different ingredients, from universities to museums, from airports to bike paths. For us at Upskill 4.0, an essential element is education, particularly higher technical education. We believe it is essential to promote good work even among those technical professions that our country has often forgotten. We believe that part of the ecosystem needs to take on young people capable of bringing together hard skills (technical knowledge) and soft skills (humanistic knowledge). It is young people who bring new skills to businesses and the system in general.
We also know that many people have already made important contributions to issues of urban and land regeneration. We are not starting from scratch; on the contrary. In the last ten years in Italy there has been a proliferation of projects that have seen cultural production and social innovation as the trigger for new trajectories. We believe that these experiences are important. We allow ourselves to think that they deserve to be complemented with a path oriented toward innovation. Our entrepreneurial system has shown in the past that it can bring together cultural content and economic value (e.g., design). We think it is possible to restart a history of which we have all been proud.