Territorial Challenges and Sustainable Regional Development. A mixed-method approach

This thesis advances a Sustainable Regional Development approach for marginalized territories by integrating quantitative diagnostics and qualitative governance analysis in central Italy (Rome, Rieti and L’Aquila). Chapter 1 assesses municipal liveability with an SDG11-aligned composite index and Benefit-of-the-Doubt aggregation; meta-frontier benchmarking and a Spatial Durbin Model separate local efficiency from structural disadvantage and reveal spatial spillovers. Chapter 2 tests whether Protected Areas reduce landscape fragmentation using a boundary-based regression discontinuity design on CORINE Land Cover (1990–2018) and the MESH metric, finding robust reductions inside parks but rapid attenuation outside borders. Chapter 3 treats Protected Areas as social–ecological systems, combining Ostrom’s framework with IUCN evaluation criteria and interviews along the Cammino Naturale dei Parchi to compare governance capacity, participation and pressures. Overall, results argue for place-based policies designed at functional territorial-system scale, coupling conservation with connectivity measures and polycentric, shared-administration arrangements that sustain liveability and compliance, guiding targeted investment and monitoring.