DOCUMENTI GEOGRAFICI - N. 2 (2024)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Articoli

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Questo numero di documenti geografici si focalizza sul tema degli eventi nel loro rapporto con il territorio. In fisica, un evento è un “punto nello spazio tempo” e questa definizione ci sembra ben si applichi anche al modo in cui in geografia e in altre scienze sociali è andato consolidandosi l’ambito degli “Event Studies” con sotto-ambiti di specializzazione per caratteristiche delle manifestazioni (mega-eventi o eventi nazionali e medio-piccoli; ambito tematico: sport, cultura, politica…), nonché tempi (prima, durante e dopo) e prospettive con cui guardarli (considerando le diverse valenze e impatti culturali, economiche, politiche, ambientali e territoriali per le località ospitanti).

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Olympic territorializations: the case studies of Cortina and Bormio. – The material construction processes of Olympic territoriality have often triggered dialectics, controversies, and conflicts of a rather widespread political, social, and communicative nature, as emerged, also in the case of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, by the chronicles of recent months. These controversies unfold on multiple discursive levels. Firstly, on the legal level, which is the focal point around which revolve all the configurative conflicts of an environmental and landscape nature. Secondly, on the economic level through strategies of appropriation and access to territorial resources. Finally, on the political level in the dual dialectic of contrasts and different positions within administrations and between administrations and civil society. The study aims to investigate some of the outcomes of the projects and territorial transformations produced by the organization of the Milan-Cortina 2026 mega Olympic event, focusing in particular on the analysis of two case studies related to two infrastructures designed in mountain municipalities with a strong tourist characterization such as Cortina and Bormio. In this context, more specifically, controversies arising from the design of the bob track in Cortina and the so-called “Alute” bypass road in Bormio will also be considered.

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Olimpiadi invernali e pianificazione spaziale: tra territorio locale e spazio regionale. – Nel corso della storia olimpica, l’edizione invernale ha subito trasformazioni significative nelle dimensioni spaziali, introducendo una nuova prospettiva critica sulla dimensione urbana. L’articolo analizza i diversi modelli spaziali delle Olimpiadi invernali attraverso indicatori statistici volti a un confronto quantitativo. Attraverso lo studio dei diversi modelli spaziali, verranno fornite nuove ipotesi sul rapporto tra le sedi olimpiche e il tessuto urbano, offrendo strumenti preziosi per valutare l’evento olimpico nell’area di riferimento. L’articolo esamina come la creazione di nuove strutture determinerà alcuni cambiamenti spaziali in grado di catalizzare nuovi impatti sulle connessioni interne della città e del territorio di riferimento.

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Olympic mega-events and digital urbanism: the case Tokyo 2020. – This article analyses the relation between Olympic mega-events and digital urbanism, by underlying the role of megaevent as accelerator of urban experimentation and the implications of the pervasive spread of smart technologies and digital platforms on the transformative processes of the spatial, social and political urban landscape. By drawing on the case study of Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the attention is focused on three main and intertwined transformative dimensions, which characterize the spatial techno-politics of the digital city: the production of urban space, in its immaterial and material dimensions; the mechanisms of urban governance, and of its governmental logics of control and regulation; and the question of urban citizenship and the transnational fight for the right to the city in anti-Olympics movements.

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Mega events and urban spaces: Paris, Olympic City 2024. – Geographical reflection has now sedimented, through theoretical reflections and empirical analysis, the assumption that the organization of major events has disruptive effects on the balance, albeit always dynamic, of urban ecosystems. Infrastructure construction and preparatory governance processes are then accelerators of transformative dynamics that implicitly or explicitly impact the spaces and communities involved. The construction of the Olympic village in the St. Denis neighborhood for the 2024 Paris event explicitly seeks to intervene on the area’s marginal territorial milieu. Investment and infrastructure constitute the line of intervention on which, naturally, critical debate has been activated. This paper, based on a qualitative methodological approach, through Document analysis, and a number of field surveys aims to identify the main critical ribs specific to the case study.

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The Rome of “great events”: mapping and diachronic analysis at the city-territory scale. The impact of a century and a half of extraordinary interventions. – This survey offers an accurate analysis of the major events held in Rome since the beginning of the 20th century. The time under review starts with the 1900 Jubilee, when the organization of hosting activities was for the first time under the responsibility of Italian authorities with specific economic support for reception facilities, and with the 1908 Olympics, where the planned venue for sporting events anticipates some of the choices made for Rome 1960 Olympics. The latter were strongly advocated by Pope Pius X, but in the end canceled by decision of Giolitti with similar motivations to the “no” expressed by Monti for the Rome 2020 event. The time spans up to the next Jubilee to be held in 2025 with the PNRR- financed projects.
Through a GIS mapping of planned and/or implemented interventions, and a comparative analysis with official ante quem and post quem cartography, the pilot survey aims at highlighting how much and how the “extraordinary” influences the “ordinary”, that is, how much targeted interventions in the city specifically needed for a major event impacts and directs its transformation, pointing out how the “extraordinary” is binding for the “ordinary” in individual case studies.

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Re-think Rome, re-generate the peripheries. The Jubilee 2025. – The importance of major events for the territorial development of Rome highlights how they have influenced urban planning choices throughout history. Rome has alternated between positive and cautious approaches toward such events over time. In particular, the Jubilee, whether in its regular or extraordinary programming, demands a planning approach that balances Rome’s identity as both a capital and an apostolic seat. The Jubilee 2025 offers an opportunity to rethink and regenerate the urban development of Rome, not only in the central neighborhoods but also in the peripheries. This contribution focuses on the urban planning project for Jubilee 2025, with particular emphasis on the southeastern quadrant of the city, to evaluate whether the proposed actions can effectively address the socio-territorial challenges faced by areas such as Tor Vergata and Tor Bella Monaca.

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Feeding the city through events: Expo 2015 seen from Turin. – Among the various Italian cities that have employed events as a means of continuous relaunch and repositioning on the national and international stage, Milan and Turin have hosted the most significant mega-events in the last 20 years, as Expo 2015 in Milan and the 2006 Winter Olympics Games (WOG) in Turin and the forthcoming Milano-Cortina WOG 2026.
Especially on the Turin side, the relationship was mostly experienced in competitive terms, with a series of events and related specialisations, which originated in Turin and then migrated (‘subtracted’ from the Turin point of view) to Milan in particular.
This paper will examine the theme of food, which is central to the Expo 2015 event and to various minor events hosted in the two cities. Among these, the Turin-based kermesse Terra Madre (since 2004) – Salone del Gusto (since 1996) – stands out.
As a result of Expo, Milan has become one of the world’s leading food capitals, the first Italian city to adopt a structured food policy, and the founder of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) that started in October 2015 and by January 2024 had reached no less than 279 cities around the globe, including almost thirty in Italy. Turin has repeatedly at-tempted to represent itself as a food capital, also thanks to Terra Madre-Salone del gusto. Furthermore, it was the first Italian city to include the ‘right to food’ in its municipal statute.
This paper will attempt to deconstruct the narratives on the food-city re-lationship in Milan and Turin, largely triggered by the two major events. In the context of renewed competition for the 2026 Olympic bid, it will question the possibilities of collaboration around food spaces.

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From Mega Events to city’s touristification: dilemmas of Genoa’s renewed cultural capital. – The Mega Events that Genoa (Liguria, Italy) hosted between 1990 and 2004 (Expo ’92, 2001 G8 summit, European Capital of Culture 2004) have shifted the urban change and economic transition of the city towards cultural tourism, inducing administrators in the past two decades to organise a series of periodic minor events in order to maintain this trend. In this article we analyse the statistical data that demonstrate these changes and present the results of a survey disseminated to 522 citizens and users of the Liguria Region with the aim of understanding the locals’ perception about the role of such events in catalysing urban transformation and about the risks or opportunities related to the touristification of Genoa. The results emphasise the enduring gap between the “long timescales” of urban transformations and their perception, identifying the main drivers of these transformations.

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Eventi e festival nella promozione delle città secondarie da una prospettiva cognitivo-culturale: le grandi cinque città secondarie di eventi. – Nell’attuale contesto della New Economy e del Capitalismo Culturale Cognitivo, le città non competono esclusivamente per l’attrazione di flussi economici, ma sono piuttosto necessarie particolari forme di capitale culturale strettamente legate al turismo e al tempo libero, che ne enfatizzino prestigio, reputazione e identità. Si ritiene che eventi e festival culturali siano diventati indicatori statistici rappresentativi per valutare il sistema urbano globale da una prospettiva cognitivo-culturale. Seguendo una metodologia quantitativa implementata nella ricerca precedente, anche se ora ampliata e perfezionata, i risultati corroborano alcuni fatti significativi: i) la necessità di studiare il sistema urbano globale da una prospettiva multidimensionale, al di là dei criteri economici; ii) la necessità di concentrarsi non solo sulle principale città globali ma anche su quelle secondarie con particolare attenzione alle cosiddette “Big Five Secondary-Eventful Cities” che, grazie a questi eventi, sono culturalmente radicate nel panorama globale palcoscenico; iii) si conferma l’efficacia degli eventi sportivi e culturali in termini di posizionamento per le città ospitanti in una prospettiva cognitivo-culturale.

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From the European Capital to the Italian Capital of Culture. Reflections on the sidelines of Procida 2022 on events, narratives, images. – The contribution focuses on the “Capital of Culture” cross-referencing the characteristics, in terms of discourses and governance, assumed by the event – in its different declination at the European and Italian scale – with the new instances developed for tourist attraction and city branding’s goals. The two events will be explored with reference to the designated Italian cities, from the evolution of European Capital of Culture (ECoC) program to the invention of the Italian Capital of Culture (ICoC) initiative. The focus on the impact of ICoC, on the sidelines of Procida 2022, will allow us to reflect on the dynamics and contradictions produced by the cultural event on a tourist location already known for literary and cinematographic representations, in order to grasp the interrelations between the event and the new narratives and images conveyed.

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Major events and local identity. The case of “la notte della taranta” in Salento. – Major events are often created to enhance or regenerate territorial attractiveness. The goal is not only to maximize the economic and employment impacts that can directly affect the event itself but also to attract the attention of investors, tourists, and institutions to invest resources and projects in the territory. In reality, these events, in addition to their attractiveness purposes, also have generative purposes, potentially contributing to strengthening the sense of belonging within the local community, territorial cohesion, and, consequently, the affective and financial investment of individual inhabitants as well as the community as a whole. This contribution, starting from the analysis of the summarised interpretative framework, aims to evaluate the effects of the Notte della Taranta on the territory and the Salento identity over a quarter of a century.

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Geographies of the sacred: the sanctuary of the SS. Trinità of Vallepietra between tradi-tion, territorial identity, and new practices. – The Sanctuary of the Santissima Trinità of Vallepietra represents an emblematic place where faith, tradition, and new social and territorial practices converge. This study examines how this sacred space continues to hold strong spiritual significance while also embracing new dynamics related to slow and sustainable travel. Younger generations are rediscovering pilgrimage through paths that combine spirituality with a search for territorial authenticity, maintaining a strong connection with tradition. The “companies” of pilgrims, symbolically united by banners and the practice of gatherings, perpetuate an identity bond with the territory, reinterpreting their belonging through a lens of re-territorialization. In this context, events related to pilgrimages and gatherings of banners are seen as practices of reclaiming the territory, strengthening the bond with the local community, and reaffirming the collective meaning of the sacred site. The approach of the Holy Year 2025 and the extraordinary Jubilee of 2033 has renewed attention to these places, intensifying the process of re-territorialization and reinforcing the bond between spirituality and territory. This study shows that, although influenced by socio-cultural changes, sanctuaries remain focal points of collective identity and territorial relationships, able to evolve without losing their original religious significance.

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Comparative Experiences of Equestrian Sports Events in the Metropolitan Area of Rome. – Sports events offer an opportunity for regeneration, visibility, and international repositioning for the hosting territories as they can lead to the creation of cultural districts, displaying the territory’s self-representation and specialization. While these events require significant organizational and financial commitments, they also present strategic opportunities with various effects, such as economic diversification and cultural enrichment. This study examines the territorial impacts of two equestrian sports events in the Rome metropolitan area: the 2022 World Equestrian Games and the Piazza di Siena horse show. Despite
performing the same sport discipline, these events have different economic, social, and environmental impacts, as well as varying dynamics related to managing territorial conflicts. The reflection aims to analyse how to reconcile the goals of tourism-economic development and environmental protection in areas with significant natural value, by identifying programmatic actions and best practices.

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Nature, landscapes and sport. One hundred years of cycling with the Giro d’Italia. – The paper aims to examine the impact of the Giro d’Italia event, analyzing the importance of the bicycle both as a sporting, amateur, and tourist activity, and as a form of sustainable mobility that contributes to the ecological transition. The applied qualitative methodology focuses on the significance of documentary analysis, but primarily on the study of narratives in the promotional media of the event. The analytical tool, Nvivo12 software, was utilized. The green projects associated with the Giro d’Italia are designed to raise awareness and promote sustainability, demonstrating that sport is a lever of considerable value. However, there is likely a need for greater emphasis and dissemination of these narratives.

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Territorial and geopolitical dynamics of the international professional tennis tour. – Major events, and in particular sports events, play an important role in contemporary society, mobilising huge amounts of resources and helping to delineate political, social and territorial phenomena of great interest. In this sense, just think of how many actors are involved in the organisation and management of competitions that, although they often take place in local contexts, are part of broader and more complex relational networks that often reach the international level. This contribution focuses on the territorial and geopolitical dynamics that characterise the major events of the international professional tennis tour. In particular, an attempt will be made to identify the logics underlying the geographical distribution of the different locations in an attempt to understand whether the choices depend on geopolitical reasons or are instead essentially linked to territorial characteristics or whether they depend on a mix of motivations. In addition, we aim to investigate whether and with what effects climate variations has already influenced or may influence the organisation of events on the international professional tennis tour in the future.