Exploring territorial imbalances: a systematic literature review of meanings and terms

Within the framework of the EU Strategies of Territorial Cohesion, a relevant role is played by policy design focused on a more balanced and equal development of regions pursued by regenerating and improving endogenous resources. A place-sensitive instead of place-neutral approach can be useful to overcome weaknesses, innovation gaps and social-economic issues related to asymmetric and unequal development between and within regions. This paper deals with the complexity of territorial imbalances and spatial inequalities by focusing on lacking, declining and marginal areas. By developing a Systematic Literature Review, a first mapping of terms, practices and issues related to those areas has been developed in order to investigate scenarios in different geo-political contexts and at various spatial scales. The Systematic Literature Review approach has permitted the systematization of a multitude of terms referring to gaps between core areas and areas suffering from territorial imbalances, as well as the exploration of disciplinary sectors, geographical contexts, document typologies, frequency of terms, and to develop a preliminary geo-localization of practices. The findings of this first step are relevant to providing a systematic knowledge base within a complex field in which a clarification of meanings, scales and processes is needed.