Forerunning : long-distance walking routes and the role of bottom-up practice in urban and territorial planning processes in Italy

This article is based on an understanding of long distance-walking (LDW) routes as both a territorial infrastructure and an emerging bottom-up land use practice which can play a relevant role in the process of innovating territorial planning instruments as well as the idea and objectives of the planning process itself. It is based not only on literature, but also on a concrete experience carried out at an urban level. This is useful for discussing LDW routes, with the idea to develop some reflections useful at different tiers of the planning process. From this perspective, the role of LDW routes as potential ‘forerunning projects’ in relation to the planning/project nexus emerges.