Designing infrastructure beyond the urban-rural divide: Comparative lessons for the European territorial palimpsest

Abstract

This article explores how insights from past and present North American infrastructure projects can inform the rethinking of infrastructure’s role in the transformation of European dispersed territories, understood as low-density urban-rural configurations. Framed by the concept of the territorial palimpsest, the paper uses a qualitative, comparative case study approach to examine how infrastructure design can mediate the urban-rural divide. Through diachronic analysis, it considers twentieth-century infrastructural imaginaries and contemporary projects, drawing lessons for the European context, including the need to combine design ambition with feasibility, engage governance structures, embrace multifunctional and hybrid strategies, and reinterpret existing conditions as opportunities.