Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper is the result of a long-lasting research experience dedicated to topics related to urban seismic
risk, addressed at promoting a radical shift towards an approach in which seismic risk, a fundamental feature
of the best part of Italian territories, is no longer considered as an ‘unexpected’ event and may be included in the
structural components every spatial planning choice should take into account. Emergency policies, which have
always prevailed in Italy, besides being very controversial as for the decision making processes and the choices
they generate, proved and still prove to be largely inefficient. Moreover, the 2016 earthquake in Central Italy is
highlighting issues going far beyond the debate on reconstruction models. One concerns the future of several
small towns in ‘inland areas’, already exposed to important depopulation and abandonment processes. Which
are the possible scenarios? Which the reference models? How are decisions made? In a different view with respect
to the dominant one, such territories represent a fundamental asset whose value, often underestimated, lays first
of all in the support they offer to the overall territorial structure of the country. We reflect then on such topics taking
the case of Accumoli (a small centre strongly hit by the Central Italy earthquake) as an example.