This book investigates why and how cycle and walking paths can help to promote the regeneration of marginalized areas facing depopulation and economic decline. In addition, it offers a broad overview of recent scientific research into slow tourism and marginality/spatial inequality and explores the linkages between these topics. Key issues are addressed by experts from various disciplinary backgrounds, and potential measures are proposed for the integration of slow tourism into strategies for regional development. Particular attention is devoted to the VENTO project, which involves the creation of a 700-km-long cycle route from Venice to Turin that passes through various rural and marginalized areas of northern Italy. The goal, research process, design, and early lessons from this important project are all discussed in detail. Moreover, the book describes policies and strategies that have successfully been used to enhance the slow tourism infrastructure in other European countries. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers, professionals, and students interested in e.g. policymaking, tourism planning, regional development, and landscape and urban planning.

This book explores the advantages of a linear model of planning in reducing regional inequalities. Linear planning, commonly discussed in the past as a method which plans the development of the city, is completely redefined here in the form of a design approach inspired by projects shaped by linear routes, such as cycle or walking paths. Such concept is applied to the urgent topic of territorial marginality which specifically neglects rural and mountainous areas and recently is coped by European and National policies. The analysis of these policies demonstrates the necessity of alternative strategies equipped to deal with both the internal and external causes that determine the critical conditions in these fragile environments. By implementing the concept of linear planning in these contexts, this book proposes to enlarge the perspective of traditional policies contrasting the regional inequalities that usually determine the design of projects just within the boundaries of the marginal areas. Cycle and walking paths are experimental cases of linear planning as they have not been influenced or formed by political boundaries and therefore are able to equally involve both the central and marginal zones. This book presents a review of current issues such as regional inequalities, with attention to their related policies, as well as an analysis of the concept of linear planning as seen through the study of one of the most famous cases of a walking path—the Way of St. James in Spain.

This book investigates why and how cycle and walking paths can help to promote the regeneration of marginalized areas facing depopulation and economic decline. In addition, it offers a broad overview of recent scientific research into slow tourism and marginality/spatial inequality and explores the linkages between these topics. Key issues are addressed by experts from various disciplinary backgrounds, and potential measures are proposed for the integration of slow tourism into strategies for regional development. Particular attention is devoted to the VENTO project, which involves the creation of a 700-km-long cycle route from Venice to Turin that passes through various rural and marginalized areas of northern Italy. The goal, research process, design, and early lessons from this important project are all discussed in detail. Moreover, the book describes policies and strategies that have successfully been used to enhance the slow tourism infrastructure in other European countries. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers, professionals, and students interested in e.g. policymaking, tourism planning, regional development, and landscape and urban planning.