The vitality of people and places

The idea of vitality is the ability of an actor or collectivity of actors to put in place a series of actions that reflect their creativeness and are consistent with self and other actualising outcomes. Such actions—through appropriate processes—reflect positive self and other-regarding values. We identify an original typology, confronting situations of unreceptive dynamicity and diffused vitality. We then hypothesize factors that support the latter, namely inclusive organising, cooperative behaviour, balanced relations, adaptive governance, low lock-in. We illustrate using examples from music education in the Trentino province, Italy. We see the focus on vitality as very contemporary, as the more standard notions of competitiveness, creativity and innovation suffer from being either extraordinarily optimistic cures for our economies, or as fast and easy recommendation that neo-liberal proponents pass on to managers and policymakers.