In the course of planetary urbanization, cities and mountains are increasingly connected by vertical rural-urban linkages. Ecosystemic, infrastructural, demographic, economic, and sociocultural linkages between valleys and peaks present numerous peculiarities due to relief and altitude of the urbanizing environment. This diverse functional integration of cities and mountains is also illustrated by the example of abandoned landscapes, which can illustrate different development phases of the city–mountain relationship. The example of the Alpine town of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy, will be used to show how the physical, demographic and socio-cultural urbanization of mountains created “landscapes”, contributed to their abandonment and finally redefined the role between city and mountain through heritagization processes. The example of the local mountain (“Hausberg”) Virgolo/Virgl illustrates that this can lead to very different perceptions and ideas about the role of the common good “Hausberg” in urban development.