Abstract
The paper focuses on the regional economic resilience and, in particular, on its adaptive interpretation, which defines it as the property of a territorial system to react and to adapt to endogenous and exogenous disturbances, in order to achieve a new balance that makes it more prepared to deal with future changes in context. Empirically the paper aims to explore and classify the determinants of resilience in an innovative way and to build resilience indices of micro-territories during the period of the economic crisis, in order to ascertain the existence of differences between the resilience municipalities in Lombardy and, therefore, confirm the importance of resilience even in micro contexts. To evaluate the role played by the adaptive capacity in influencing regional resilience,”Indicators of Adaptation” were built, to verify the importance exercised by the flexibility and adaptability of the territories to determine their resilience. The analysis at the micro-regional level showed that Lombardy and its municipalities have exhibited resilience items during the economic crisis and that this property is crucial to enhance the economic development of micro-territories. Therefore, governments and policymakers should pay attention to the regional resilience, in order to undertake new paths of growth and renewal.