Today, territorial development increasingly takes the form of a competition between places capable of offering good living conditions for people. Cities, regions and territories no longer compete solely on economic incentives, productive specialisation or large-scale infrastructure, but on their ability to provide accessible services, sustainable life–work balance, employment opportunities, environmental quality and strong community relationships. In this context, attractiveness is no longer a side effect of development, but a structural lever.
By Luciano Malfer, Research and Family Development Manager, Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK)
Mountain areas, inner regions and demographically fragile territories make this dynamic particularly evident. In these contexts, competition is harsher, because demographic decline, the thinning of services and the loss of opportunities make visible a truth that now concerns Europe as a whole: without people, no environmental, economic or technological strategy can be sustainable over time. These territories therefore act as a magnifying lens for a systemic phenomenon.
European data clearly confirm this trend. Eurostat demographic projections show that many European regions, especially peripheral and rural ones, are expected to experience population decline and rapid ageing over the coming decades. This is not merely a quantitative loss, but a structural weakening of territorial systems: fewer families, fewer workers, pressure on services and reduced capacity for innovation. In this scenario, competition between territories risks generating growing gaps between attractive areas and those caught in a spiral of depopulation.
This issue has entered the European agenda with growing force. In recent years, EU institutions and many national governments have begun to explicitly recognise the demographic factor as a structural constraint on the green and digital transitions. Within the debate on European competitiveness, it is increasingly clear that shortages of human capital, population ageing and difficulties in attracting people and skills represent systemic risks for economic growth, innovation and social cohesion. Demography is no longer a residual social variable, but a central issue of competitive positioning.
The paradox becomes evident when looking at the history of sustainable development. The Brundtland Report (Our Common Future, 1987) introduced a vision based on balancing economic, social and environmental dimensions, anticipating the Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, Profit. At that time, however, the People dimension was largely taken for granted. The problem was not population scarcity, but excessive growth, as already highlighted by The Limits to Growth (Club of Rome, 1972).
“The demographic transition has emerged as a critical factor”
Today, the scenario has reversed. After decades of strong focus on environmental sustainability—culminating in the European Green Deal—and a long phase in which economic and financial growth dominated global debate, the demographic transition has emerged as a critical factor. Without new generations, the risk is not only failing to “sustain” the future, but no longer having anyone to inhabit it. In competitive terms, this means territories increasingly unable to attract and retain people, skills and enterprises.
In this context, the People dimension is no longer an ancillary variable, but the precondition for sustainable development and territorial competitiveness. This is also why it now plays a central role in ESG frameworks. The “S” for Social directly refers to the capacity to invest in people: quality jobs, inclusion, welfare systems, human capital and social capital. Without this component, sustainability remains incomplete and territorial competition rests on fragile foundations.
Attractiveness today is no longer linked only to incentives or flagship projects, but to the concrete possibility of living well. Education and care services, mobility accessibility, compatible life rhythms, community relationships and opportunities for children, young people and older adults are becoming decisive factors. In territories that fail to guarantee an adequate level of services, a regressive cycle is triggered: fewer people, fewer services, declining attractiveness.
This challenge becomes even more significant when viewed through the lens of the three major transitions currently underway: environmental, digital and demographic. The climate crisis requires radical changes in resource use; the digital transition reshapes work, organisations and access to services; the demographic transition determines who will actually benefit from these changes. Without people, the other two transitions risk producing technologically advanced but socially empty territories.
It is within this framework that the paradigm of the saturation economy emerges, understood as an evolution of the circular economy. While circularity focuses on materials, energy and production processes, saturation extends the same principle to territorial and social systems: making better use of what already exists before adding new resources. Underused spaces, dormant infrastructure, partially accessible services, as well as skills and social networks, represent a form of capital that is often invisible.
A saturated economy makes it possible to expand services at zero or marginal cost by activating existing capacities: public buildings used only during certain hours, underutilised transport systems, services designed for single target groups that can be opened to broader audiences. In this way, territories can improve their offer for people without additional land consumption, without new infrastructure and without increasing public expenditure, while strengthening their attractiveness.
This paradigm shift also requires an evolution of governance. Sharing resources is not enough; what is needed is co-action, namely the ability to jointly design and manage solutions in a coordinated way among public institutions, businesses, local communities and the third sector. This is the context in which a people-centred development strategy takes shape, aimed at building operational alliances capable of generating shared value and reactivating underused territorial capital.
“Today, the greatest danger lies not in change, but in standing still, continuing to replicate models designed for a world that no longer exists.”
Innovation, however, is never a linear process. As Machiavelli observed, introducing “new orders” inevitably generates resistance and risk. Today, the greatest danger lies not in change, but in standing still, continuing to replicate models designed for a world that no longer exists. In territorial competition, inertia increasingly means loss of position.
For this reason, alongside strategic visions, the storytelling of what has actually been done becomes crucial. Narrating concrete experiences—in mobility, housing, services, and social and cultural infrastructure—where existing resources have been reorganised and integrated helps make the saturation economy visible as a real and replicable practice. This is where the circular economy is completed, evolving into a saturated economy capable of generating new value without additional resource consumption.
It is within this perspective that a new editorial series is being launched in collaboration with ELFAC, made possible by a protocol signed on 11 February 2026 with Fondazione Bruno Kessler. The series will focus on systematically presenting methodologies, concrete practices and real stories of People Strategy developed across European territories: experiences in territorial welfare, family policies, urban regeneration, proximity services and collaborative governance models. The aim is not to celebrate individual cases, but to build a learning-oriented narrative, capable of showing how investing in people can become an operational lever for territorial attractiveness and competitiveness. Because the true transformation of sustainability begins when people are recognised not as a cost, but as the core infrastructure of Europe’s future.