“Next Appennino is the strategy that brings together modernity and tradition, starting from a concrete experience, the one I had first as mayor, as regional councilor of the Marche, after reconstruction and now as reconstruction commissioner. It is a volume, a testimony, which comes from concrete experience”. Thus the author of “Mediae Terrae”, the Extraordinary Commissioner Sisma 2016, Guido Castelli, at the presentation of his book this afternoon at the National Small and Medium Publishing Fair ‘More books, more free’, underway in Rome.
A book that tells the story of the reconstruction of the central Apennines after the 2016-2017 earthquake: “Between 24 August 2016 and 18 January 2017, approximately 50 thousand tremors shook an area of the central Apennines with an extension greater than that of Holland. It was a great tragedy – says Commissioner Castelli – Many false starts, many initial controversies. Then something changed: we managed to bring about a change of pace in the reconstruction, but right at that moment we understood that rebuilding the houses makes no sense if we do not simultaneously also take care of the economic and social vitality of wonderful territories, but which more than others are suffering from the demographic crisis. We know that it is precisely in that quadrant between Fabriano, Spoleto, Rieti, L’Aquila, Ascoli Piceno, Camerino that the Italian and in some ways European identity was cultivated – he continues – From this point of view, however, we have a clear ‘objective of preserving our traditions, keeping them to some extent intact, but also making the Apennines make a leap towards contemporaneity”.
“The Apennines can be saved if they are able to also engage with major transitions: environmental, digital, technological – he adds – Innovation can be a help for those suffering from geographical isolation. By activating, as we are doing, a path to increase connectivity and of digitalisation of our environments – he concludes – You can compete by living precisely in that territorial quadrant, a competitive life of very advanced quality”.