Looking for a Balance Between Memories, Patrimonialization, and Tourism: Sustainable Approaches to Industrial Heritage Regeneration in Northwestern Italy

Historically renowned for its industrialization, Northwestern Italy is undergoing significant economic transformations after the late 20th century deindustrialization, whose profound impacts present challenges for the development of sustainable approaches to the territory’s urban and rural memoryscapes revitalization. This paper critically analyzes three cases in Ponte Lambro, Sesto San Giovanni, and Genoa, whose industrial histories allow for studying how industrial heritage-making projects can promote socioeconomic opportunities and tourism, balancing community well-being, conservation needs, and social inclusion. The study focuses on what heritage is meant to achieve and how the past and its ties are retroactively “constructed” more than on the material constitution of heritage, examining the initiatives’ contribution to long-term social, cultural, and environmental sustainability. It also applies the analytical method proposed by Muzaini and Minca (2018) to evaluate the inhabitants’ involvement in the heritage-making process. Findings suggest heritage valorization contributes to the creation of complex collective identities and territorial regeneration, although management contradictions and challenges emerge, such as the absence of an integrated and participatory approach. This shows the complexity of heritage-making processes, fluctuating between new meanings, the risk of marginalizing relevant aspects of local memory, the need for sustainable preservation, and the challenges of its touristic and economic consumption.