Contemporary analyses of territorial marginality and fragility highlight a profound polarisation between attractive (albeit increasingly inaccessible) urban centres and inner and mountain areas experiencing demographic and economic decline. This gap drives the debate on left-behind places (Pike et al., 2023; Fiorentino, 2024; Rauhut et al., 2026), conceptualised as a spatial imaginary where territories affected by various marginalisation phenomena converge. Fuelling this fracture is the hegemonic narrative of metrophilia (Morgan, 2014; 2018), which celebrates cities as the sole engines of productive, political, and cultural development, relegating non-urban territories to a structurally subordinate and peripheral role.

Socioeconomically, the affirmation of this paradigm translates into a progressive thinning out of services and a weakening of the labour supply in the so-called places that don't matter. The direct consequence is a growing “disenchantment” with institutions, perceived as responsible for the consolidation of territorial inequalities. This disillusionment has been intercepted by neo-populist political forces, capable of redrawing, at the electoral level, the new “geographies of discontent” (Rodriguez-Pose, 2018).

The objective of this Special Issue is to bring together the accounts of these experimentations to attempt a conceptual recomposition of territorial regeneration. While acknowledging it as a multidimensional quasi-concept (Barbera, in Lupatelli & De Rossi, 2025), the intent is to prevent its fluidity from turning into theoretical vagueness (Lanzani, 2024). We therefore invite reflections on a situated and contemporary definition of dwelling in inner and mountain areas. Concurrently, it is necessary to investigate which political, social, and infrastructural conditions can stimulate and safeguard the regenerative heritage potential and neo-population flows. Finally, it is crucial to understand its spatial and urban-territorial implications to concretely guarantee the habitability of these territories.

Theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions may explore territorial regeneration experimentations through transdisciplinary lenses, preferably organised along the following axes:

1. New forms of community dwelling and typological-spatial innovation

2. Tangible and intangible infrastructure of habitability

3. New inhabitants: demographics and rooting practices

4. Local governance, commoning practices, cooperative economies, and tools beyond extemporaneity

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