ABSTRACT
Traditional methods adopted in planning and programming activities have been developed in periods when society was less dynamic and complex. Such approaches led to defining the future evolution of a territory in great detail. 1 The application of these methods in the current context of socio-economic transformation coupled with abrupt changes due to technological innovation, globalization and recent financial crisis contributed to the creation of a sort of 'suspiciousness' about planning and programming activities. Plans following such assumptions based their success on a faithful execution of planning instruments, 2 but the extreme mutability of today's socio-economic contexts may lead to the risk of discussing once again the location choices made many years before.
