Specifically, according to U.N. estimates, by 2050 the Earth’s population will approach 9.7 billion, and of these, 68% will choose to move to urban centers, resulting in a consequent and inevitable increase in energy consumption, waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions. 17 How much this state of affairs affects the proper management of hospitality is easy to tell when one considers the now rather worrisome phenomena such as overtourism18 which generates flows of people into the territory such that they result in primary inconvenience to tourists and side effects to the inhabitants. These are impressive numbers that cannot fail to lead us in the hoped-for direction of a rethinking of the city’s modus vivendi19 as moreover pointed out by those more sensitive thinkers who have, not surprisingly, bluntly framed the issue that occupies us in the terms of a true intergenerational future emergency. 20 Making, therefore, large cities more livable, investing in the regeneration of the entire urban supply chain, in the most authentic emotional alphabets of citizenship as are the inland areas of small towns and abandoned villages21 , putting for effect the most innovative technologies at the service of the context and people, while at the same time incentivizing mobility systems also shared that reduce pollution by increasing the quality of transport services, are just some of the challenges that cities around the world are facing in these very years.22 Likewise, it is not enough just to highlight the importance of these clusters as much as it is necessary to reiterate the need for them to be evaluated with humanistic scrupulousness and implemented holistically precisely in order to prevent that risk of structural clivage, always lurking in major processes of change23, from then making because of the volatile technological device involved 17 For a concrete and realistic response to the well-known Hobbesian dilemma about whether the general insecurity brought about by the unbridled freedom of the strongest can undermine the guarantee of the habitability of the planet by all see, L Ferrajoli, For a Constitution of the Earth. Humanity at the crossroads. Feltrinelli 2022. 18 For necessary insights see the fine book by M. Honey, K. Frenkiel, Overtourism: Lessons for a Better Future, Feltrinelli 2021. See also Gainsforth’s evocative work, Beyond Tourism. Is there such a thing as sustainable tourism? Feltrinelli 2023. 19 He passionately questions the issue C. Del Bò, Tourism Ethics. Responsibility, sustainability, equity, Carocci 2017. Also returning to these ends is the forward-looking collection by M. Prezioso, M. Addis, F. Bolici, a. D’Orazio, G. Diana, S. Leonardi, F. Mulazzi, M. Pigliucci, Reprogramming territorial growth. Sustainable tourism, regeneration and enhancement of cultural heritage, Patron publisher 2021. 20 See the original work by F. G. Menga, The Emergency of the Future. The fates of the planet and the responsibilities of the present, Donzelli 2021. 21 On the topic see the fine work-project by A. De Rossi (ed.) Re-inhabiting Italy. The internal areas between abandonment and reconquest, Donzelli 2018. 22 Let me refer here to L. Cameriero, The re-signification of small towns and villages from old aestheticizing visions to new urban tactics, Smart cities at the time of resilience, (ed.) G.F. Ferrari, Mimesis 2021. 23 Takes this interesting perspective with insight by developing a theory according to which cities are not only places of living, but also powerful creative devices for building fruitful relationships and new economies useful for 168 FRANCESCO GASPARI | LUIGI CAMERIERO
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE4NzM5Nw==