Analysing Local Cross-border Cooperation in Fragile Peripheral Areas in Northern Italy

The Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas created a legal and innovative territorial arrangement requiring municipal collaboration for policy and decision-making. This paper aims to verify the strategies, approaches, and projects associated with local cross-border cooperation, discuss the implications and effects, and generate reflections on the defined and unexploited opportunities to interact with municipalities within and outside the inner area's boundaries. The findings indicate that cross-border strategies are linked to healthcare, education, and mobility services. However, all the examined documents fail to make explicit indications that one municipality must cooperate with another to activate such an asset or system. The new local strategy must take advantage of the proximity of the nearby inner areas to boost integrated regional development and better exploit the territorial capital.