Territorial development prospects in the light of the dynamics of economic and social polarization in the EU

Financial crisis, predatory attitudes, markets, finance, speculation, international trade, asymmetrical globalization, political choices represent some of the factors underlying a growing inequality, to be found among the world population. In the past significant differences related to the opportunity to access to resources and quality of life characterized the least developed countries. In recent years - since the 1980-, these disparities are interesting even Western countries such as the industrial economies of the Atlantic and European countries; an international scientific and political debate has developed around this theme. Looking at the inequalities from the social and economic perspective, it produces a widespread sense of injustice, which culminates in the erosion of the trust in institutions, politics and the market economy; the issue also takes importance from a geopolitical point of view, especially if it is observed jointly with the polarization of individuals and countries, or if it is placed in correlation with the crisis of liberal democracies, often accompanied by the spread of nationalist currents capable of putting into discussion the pillars of the EU system. The paper observes the inequalities through the scientific literature and through it it’s possible to find the causes and effects of this condition. In particular, it is possible to note the progressive impoverishment of the middle class of the population and the correlated concentration of national wealth in favor of a small minority (Stiglitz, 2014), the rise of a hyper-paid elite (Piketty, 2018; Saez and Zucman, 2019), a reduced upward economic mobility (Krueger, 2021). These phenomena should be reread in the light of the aggregation of individual behaviors to better understand the increasingly evident phenomenon of the disintegration of the social fabric, considered, in many cases, also the cause of the political metamorphosis of some States. The research analyzes the statistical data acquired from Eurostat and Istat, with the aim of carrying out a comparative analysis between states and regions, functional to the observation and definition of the dynamics of social and economic polarization in the EU space. The results of the study, declined on the local scale, could represent a contribution for a better setting of the policy lines capable of achieving objectives contained in the 2030 Agenda.