Buzz has been in short supply in southern Sardinia for some time now — some would say ever since the decline of the region’s Bronze Age Nuragic civilization. Yet on Italy’s second largest island, where sheep vastly outnumber people, there’s unmistakable new energy in Cagliari, its small Mediterranean capital, and the surrounding countryside.

“We used to think of ourselves as rustic, as isolated in this island backwater,” a local lay historian, Venturino Vargiu, told me, as we watched the city’s annual folk costume extravaganza of Sant’Efisio. “But Sardinians are starting to understand that our culture has real value for us and for outsiders.”

In Cagliari, there’s a surge in pride, along with a wave of new development, mostly aimed at increasing the already growing numbers of tourists. In the rapidly transforming Marina neighborhood, a onetime fishermen’s enclave that is today a lively mix of immigrants and longtime residents, a promenade designed by the architect Stefano Boeri will create a lush parkland along the waterfront. A light-rail line will connect the Marina with Cagliari’s hinterlands, and a new port, projected for 2026, is being constructed to move cruise ships farther away, allowing the yacht set to dock (and spend money) in Cagliari’s center.

For Cagliari and the south — which stretches out along a white-sand and cyan-sea coastline of stunning beaches — a tide of tourism could either prove destructive or be a boon to a region short on opportunity. Decades back, the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia’s north became a resort playground for the rich — a Milan-by-the-Mediterranean that symbolized how tourists can colonize a territory.

But can a more harmonious form of travel be created in the south? With overtourism now the curse of many an Italian outpost, I visited the area and asked locals what might shape a better future.