La “metrica del progetto” come indicatore di previsione e di rappresentazione delle potenzialità e dello sviluppo dei sistemi territoriali

[Machine translation] To outline the processes of development of territorial systems, geography is also called upon to deal with the so-called “project metric”, that is, with that set of indicators that define the capacity for comparison (intersubjective and interinstitutional), of prediction, of definition of goals, of planning and implementation of initiatives, of evaluating performance and of the results obtained. In fact, the resulting results make it possible to argue how the topographic distance, time distance, cost distance and functional distance can be added, to integration and implementation, an additional dimension of the same that we could call “design”; the latter would allow us not to remain anchored only to facts, data, or “products”, but to turn our eyes to the conditions that define, propose and interpret the potential and opportunities to be grasped and developed. In other words, with the explicit help of these indicators, it would seem possible to recognize in territorial differentials, and in attempts to overcome them, not only the results of processes attributable to the past, but also of those that originate for the definition of the future., In this theoretical-methodological framework, the contribution intends to demonstrate how the concept of proximity becomes a function of the projects activated in the territory, of the latter's ability to interact with development that originates at different territorial scales and of the attention that the activators and beneficiaries place around what may be, metaphorically, the “near future” that awaits them: taken in this perspective, the project could allow a more exhaustive representation of both the weaknesses acquired by a system territorial (negative proximity), and of its strengths, potential and possible, desirable and achievable opportunities. , The “project metric”, in order to generate significant and relevant results, however, requires the use of a “grammar”, that is, a set of rules, methods, descriptive categories and technical tools, typical of the disciplines that define the action and the intervention, but which is also configured as an essential support for feedback on the description and interpretation of the facts, objects and structures on which it is intended to intervene. , Starting from these considerations, the contribution aims to identify which are the factors and variables that define and explain design distance, and that, reciprocally, enrich and update the concept of proximity. In the wake of these reflections, we will also try to reveal how geography, using these tools, can intervene with greater authority in the definition of the evolutionary trajectories of contemporary territorial development.