But what is the current state of Sardinia's connectivity between its inland areas and between these and its urban centers? Has anything changed over time and with the changing regional governments? What are the responses that still need to be given today to the needs of territories characterized by geographical disadvantages?

Sardinia's inland areas—that is, those specific areas distant from the main hubs of essential services such as education, mobility, and social and health services, so squeezed between growing depopulation and a lack of services—still appear to require decisive interventions. These are territories that, even at the most basic level, are still conceived of as secondary, largely "marginalized" from the efficiency typical of major centers of interest. To date, it seems difficult to understand whether these areas are destined for a sort of planned decline, or whether they are instead destined to be valorized and understood for their cultural significance, aimed at pursuing a distinctive economic development. Put differently, and looking at Sardinia as a whole, it would perhaps be important to try to understand which territories can, so to speak, undergo a reversal of trend, freeing themselves from subordination, and which, instead, require more substantial inputs to foster processes of cohesion and territorial development that can prevent their irreversible decline.

The questions are many and certainly not easy to answer. The fate of the inland areas, definable as ultra-peripheral with all that this entails, could likely be linked to various factors, not least the constant connectivity between them and each other. And perhaps, at present, it would be necessary to ask whether Sardinia's specific territorial features, precisely because of their unique characteristics, can become distinctive centers of competitiveness, and to what extent. Connections in Sardinia's inland areas are predominantly road-based, and therefore are affected by fuel costs. They also have a so-called radial structure. In terms of public transport, the mountainous and inland areas are connected primarily by a network of extra-urban buses, which, however, is largely dependent on student and commuter travel and likely needs to be strengthened in terms of frequency and diversification. If we then consider that rail transport is now even less important, as it essentially provides connections between the main cities, then it becomes clear how the entire system suffers from the geographical difficulties typical of inland areas. Agriculture and tourism, in today's Sardinia, can still be a driver of growth, but they should be enhanced through an infrastructure system specifically redesigned to reflect the unique characteristics of the region.