Water resources as an engine of local development: the case of the “water villages” of Rasiglia and Borghetto. – There are several cities have made water their hall-mark of tourist attractiveness and socio-economic development. In Italy, this category includes all the large coastal cities (such as Venice, Naples, Cagliari or Palermo) or those crossed by large rivers (Bologna, Florence, Rome), the centers that have sprung up on the edges of large lakes (Riva del Garda, Bolsena, Bracciano, etc. ) or those known because they are linked to the presence of hot springs (Saturnia, Montecatini, Fiuggi Acqui, etc.), but also the localities that bear precisely the title of “water village” and thus make it a distinctive and characteristic element. It is precisely these small and charming villages, hamlets of municipalities in inland areas, scattered in the various regions of Italy that over time have been able to enhance water both as a landscape element but also as an element of production and economic development, that are the subject of this contribution. Among these, the cases of Rasiglia and Borghetto will be analyzed to describe the role that technology in the past has played in building the relationship of these localities with water, the role it has today and could have in the next future to contribute to their path toward building a circular economy and thus sustainable development.

The problem of the failure and/or unsatisfactory development of Southern Italy recurs insistently and from various point of view in the political and scientific debate. The contributions range from the analysis of the determinants of political ineffectiveness in promoting a better development path, to the proposition of formulas capable of correcting this situation and thereby establish paths of interregional convergence or catching-up. In this framework, is useful to studying Sardinia as a "laboratory" to examine the main institutional trends and variables at the base of the north-south dualism that characterizes the Italian economy, as well as to deepen and explore new approaches and solutions to the problem of interregional imbalances. The paper, moving from this assumption analyze the causes underlying the disappointing socio-economic development promoted in Sardinia. Moreover suggests possible reforming paths of political institutions and new economic measures of intervention with particular reference to the need for a re-enactment of the federalist principles and the idea of the guaranteed minimum income.