Innovazione digitale e polarizzazione spaziale. Un’analisi sui nuovi divari regionali

Abstract. The article analyses the spatial polarization processes of innovative activities, with particular attention to the United States and Europe, assessing the economic and political effects in the regions left behind. The contribution is part of the research program launched by the essay “The revenge of the Places that don’t matter” by Rodriguez-Pose (2018), which has attracted increasing attention. The article proposes a review of the international debate developed on this topic, adding two further elements: first of all, new keys to understanding the causes of spatial polarization processes such as proposed from the approaches of the Knowledge Economy; secondly, the discussion on post-Covid 19 spatial trends, which are reopening a window of opportunity in favour of a territorial rebalancing of location processes. The article also proposes a first review of case studies of “competitive peripheries”, i.e. places outside the main metropolitan centres that have nevertheless been able to deploy effective development processes through the combination of endogenous factors and the attraction of external innovative resources.