Territorial development of fragile urban contexts in the face of climate change challenges: a comparative analysis of Brindisi and Porto Marghera, Italy

The role played by fossil fuel companies in the territorialisation-deterritorialisation-reterritorialisation cycle provides a geographical interpretation of climate change. This helps in understanding the phenomenon, given the evolution of vertical (environment/human communities) and horizontal (industry, institutions, local communities, environmental movements, etc.) relationships across different scales. The establishment of fossil fuel companies in a region initiates irreversible transformation processes— both tangible (landscape, infrastructure, etc.) and intangible (production relations, programmatic trajectories, etc.). The impacts of such industries on the environment and climate play a dual role. On the one hand, they can be interpreted from a deterritorialisation perspective, especially when accompanied by harmful deindustrialisation forms. On the other hand, fossil fuel companies’ acknowledged accountability for environmental degradation processes in their vicinity and contribution to climate change has sparked a diverse range of responses from multiple territorial actors, identifying various potential reterritorialisation perspectives. Based on these premises, this contribution focuses on two industrial urban contexts on the Italian Adriatic coast: Brindisi (Puglia, Southeast) and the area of Venice–Porto Marghera (Veneto, Northeast). Both areas host a petrochemical plant and other heavy industries, whose harmful effects on health, the environment, and the climate have led to recognising the two territories as sites of national concern. After a comparative analysis of the two areas’ vulnerability profiles, carried out through the contextual vulnerability approach, the contribution delves into the development trajectories undertaken by the two territories to understand how environmental and climate issues have been addressed in local political agendas.