Well-Being and Sustainability in Crisis Areas: The Case of Taranto

Nicola Bellantuono, Francesco Paolo Lagrasta, Pierpaolo Pontrandolfo and Barbara Scozzi
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Nicola Bellantuono: Department of Agriculture, Food, Natural Resources and Engineering, Università di Foggia, via Napoli 25, 71121 Foggia (FG), Italy
Francesco Paolo Lagrasta: Department of Mechanics, Mathematics & Management, Politecnico di Bari, via Orabona 4, 70126 Bari (BA), Italy
Pierpaolo Pontrandolfo: Department of Mechanics, Mathematics & Management, Politecnico di Bari, via Orabona 4, 70126 Bari (BA), Italy
Barbara Scozzi: Department of Mechanics, Mathematics & Management, Politecnico di Bari, via Orabona 4, 70126 Bari (BA), Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-23

Abstract: Unresilient and fragile regions need methods and data able to make policy-makers acknowledge the specific criticalities by which they are affected, so as to build effective development strategies and policies. This research explores whether and to what extent well-being and sustainability measurement frameworks are able to recognize crisis areas. We identified Taranto (Italy), declared as both a National Priority Contaminated Site and a Complex Industrial Crisis area, as a paradigmatic and extreme case of crisis areas and adopted the single case approach to address our research question. After reviewing several frameworks able to measure well-being at local level, we focused on Benessere Equo e Sostenibile dei Territori (Equitable and Sustainable Territorial Well-being, BESdT). We used two aggregate indexes to analyze data, namely the Adjusted Mazziotta-Pareto Index and the Adjusted Differences Mean Index. The study shows that, although BESdT does detect some criticalities of the examined area, it seems not able to adequately frame the multifaceted crisis that affects the area of Taranto. Even in presence of a full-blown crisis, the problematic situation does not always reflect into lower territorial performance, neither at the level of single indicators nor at the level of entire domains. Such discrepancy appears to be particularly evident within the economic domain. The paper ends with a discussion on the research and policy implications and some proposals for further research.

Keywords: well-being; crisis areas; sustainability; Taranto; policy making; Benessere Equo e Sostenibile dei Territori; equitable and sustainable well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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