Le «Cooperative di Comunità», un’opportunità per le aree marginali. I casi di Succiso e Cerreto Alpi nell’Appennino reggiano

The last decades have been marked by an increased aging of the population on the one hand and by the depopulation of marginal areas on the other hand. Added to this is the Welfare crisis which has led central and local governments to find it increasingly difficult to get all the resources needed to face these problems. While it remains essential that public policies take care of marginal areas, it is even more important that citizens play an active role in implementing actions which oppose the decline of these territories. This decline takes by sure different forms: from immediate environmental degradation to the more discreet but no less important institutional amnesia, that can be seen when a given territory seems to be left behind. But by who? The State? The society? The dynamics of the orthodox economy? ... Among the proposals that have been successfully implemented to try to struggle with these problems, there are the «Community Cooperatives». Some scholars specialized in the study of social enterprises even propose to make of them a new paradigm of economic and social development for marginal areas. This work tries to delve deeper into the challenges of these realities, starting from the analysis of two case-studies in Emilia Romagna region (Italy).