A productive economy and civic virtues in the inclusive Italy of cities and villages
Will the future belong to cities or villages? This is a recurring question in the predictions of futurologists. It inspires analyses into the economy and society, urban and architectural projects – and even the forthcoming International Exhibition at the Triennale di Milano on the fate of cities. So, will we live in gigantic agglomerations with millions of inhabitants or in the quiet of small villages? Will we have no other choice?
Anyone, however, who looks carefully at the prospects for sustainable, environmental and social development cannot fail to reflect on a unique Italian condition. Namely, the possibility of combining the social and economic dynamism of large cities with the quality of life of small and medium-sized towns and historic villages, thus combining economic growth with social cohesion, the attractiveness and competitiveness of economically productive areas with the civility of positive relationships and the civic sense of welcoming communities.
To gain a better understanding, you can try to study the geographical maps – on paper or digitally – that tell the story of that large area that stretches, horizontally, from Piedmont to the North East and, vertically, from the Alps to Emilia and the part of Tuscany on the Tyrrhenian coast, with its two main outlets to the Mediterranean located at Genoa and Trieste. This is the ‘A1/A4 region‘ if we want to call it by the name of the motorways that run through it (a nice definition coined by Dario Di Vico, a perceptive economic journalist, in Il Corriere della Sera). Or, to give it another definition, the mega-region that is one of Europe’s richest and most productive, ideal for strengthening relations between the continent and the Mediterranean area opening onto Africa.
The area is polycentric. It has a wide range of urban dimensions but all are linked by intense social, economic and cultural flows, with a highly attractive metropolis – the so-called ‘greater Milan’ – five cities of significant size in Turin, Bologna, Florence, Genoa and Venice-Mestre, a series of medium to medium-large cities – Brescia and Bergamo, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Parma and Piacenza – and a dense network of other urban areas full of history and solid economic and cultural roots (Pavia, Trento and Udine, to name but a few). In between, there are small towns and historic villages in the Apennines and along the coasts, with very varied and often well-integrated economic systems. A unique area of its kind, in Europe.
The agricultural hills of the Langhe and Treviso areas; the ‘Motor Valley’ of Emilia; the mechatronics and aerospace hubs in Varese, Gallarate and Busto Arsizio; the textile areas between Como and Biella; the mechanical and furnishing industries in Brianza; the shipbuilding and chemical industries; the centres of specialisation for metalworking and the packaging industry in Emilia; and so on and so forth: a portfolio of industrial excellence that has helped Italy become the world’s fifth largest exporter, to the tune of 670 billion euros in 2023.
An economic and financial giant, thanks to the growing influence of banks? Not only that.
Our maps testify to the presence of numerous universities, several of which (Milan, Turin and Bologna, above all) sit at the top of international rankings; to high-level research centres for the life sciences, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare and good nutrition; to world-class culture, including music and theatre, visual arts, science, high-tech publishing and literary activities; and to tourism. So, places and flows. People and ideas in motion. A civilisation of machines and relationships. A world with a taste for its roots and a global outlook. An area that is easily recognised in Carlo Maria Cipolla’s essential definition, when he speaks of ‘Italians accustomed, since the Middle Ages, to producing, in the shadow of bell towers, beautiful things that please the world’.
High-speed rail has been a real game-changer for the flow of people over the past ten years: you can live in Turin or Bologna and, with just an hour’s journey (the usual metropolitan time in Paris, London or New York), work in Milan, or vice versa. You can live in a village in the Po Valley and be connected to the rest of Europe, the US or China. You can feel part of an urban population and at the same time enjoy the silence of hillside villages. This is a changing world. A world that balances the metropolis with small villages. And it’s something that only this Italian area in question can provide.
So, does that mean everything is all right? Are we all happy? Of course not. Because flows of people – if they are to enable not only economic productivity but also boost the quality of life – need infrastructure that is both tangible and intangible. That means efficient transport, and not only for high-speed trains (the shortcomings and inefficiencies of the Ferrovie Nord railway lines in Lombardy are increasingly the reason for protests by tens of thousands of commuters). It means services. And fast and stable digital connections (a decent 5G network that matches the socio-economic situation described above is still a long way away). These are all unsatisfactory elements. Investments driven by the NRRP should provide some solutions, although doubts and delays are growing.
The economy is dynamic, rapid and productive. The way local authorities are structured lags behind. The law on metropolitan areas, which has never been fully implemented, is some way off from providing local political solutions and services in line with the new urban and social mobility. And there is an almost complete lack of general political choices around health, schooling (a fundamental part of cultural and civic integration and training) and assistance for weak and fragile individuals and social groups.
We must ‘combine development and social cohesion in medium-sized cities’, warns Aldo Bonomi, a sociologist focused on ‘molecular capitalism’ and the dynamics of the ‘infinite city’ (Il Sole24Ore, 26 March). Of course. But ‘civic infrastructure‘ and ‘collaborative networks’ are lacking. Services, to be precise. And good governance of the area, unshackled from neo-municipalism and the closed idea of suffocating identities, hostile to the essential cultures of plural, open and welcoming identities. Indeed, just as the Italian history of the ‘thousand bell towers’ teaches us.
This, then, is the challenge: to support economic sustainably, something that many companies have come to appreciate is not merely a marketing and communication choice, but a real competitive asset. And build new and better community values. Including by trying to govern those phenomena that are altering life in our cities: the devastating effects of mass tourism, the radical negative changes in property values, with Airbnb rents that are destroying historic town centres and drastically reducing the chances of certain middle-aged or young couples of finding a home (la Repubblica, 31 March), and the intolerable rise in the cost of living.
Cities, in order to grow, need cives – citizens who inhabit and live in them in a civic spirit and do not merely ‘use’ them, who frequent public and private places of work, sport, culture and leisure. They animate the flows of people being together. And they think about their future and that of their families in community spaces.
Italy’s history of civil economy, spirit of citizenship and community culture is full of examples and testimonies, from the round and welcoming ‘greater Milan’ to all those small and medium-sized cities and towns in the areas we mentioned above. We must insist on keeping widespread economic development and social inclusion together. Civic virtues persisting. And an aptitude for innovation. The bell’Italia proving, once again, that it knows how to be Italy.
(Photo Getty Images)
Will the future belong to cities or villages? This is a recurring question in the predictions of futurologists. It inspires analyses into the economy and society, urban and architectural projects – and even the forthcoming International Exhibition at the Triennale di Milano on the fate of cities. So, will we live in gigantic agglomerations with millions of inhabitants or in the quiet of small villages? Will we have no other choice?
Anyone, however, who looks carefully at the prospects for sustainable, environmental and social development cannot fail to reflect on a unique Italian condition. Namely, the possibility of combining the social and economic dynamism of large cities with the quality of life of small and medium-sized towns and historic villages, thus combining economic growth with social cohesion, the attractiveness and competitiveness of economically productive areas with the civility of positive relationships and the civic sense of welcoming communities.
To gain a better understanding, you can try to study the geographical maps – on paper or digitally – that tell the story of that large area that stretches, horizontally, from Piedmont to the North East and, vertically, from the Alps to Emilia and the part of Tuscany on the Tyrrhenian coast, with its two main outlets to the Mediterranean located at Genoa and Trieste. This is the ‘A1/A4 region‘ if we want to call it by the name of the motorways that run through it (a nice definition coined by Dario Di Vico, a perceptive economic journalist, in Il Corriere della Sera). Or, to give it another definition, the mega-region that is one of Europe’s richest and most productive, ideal for strengthening relations between the continent and the Mediterranean area opening onto Africa.
The area is polycentric. It has a wide range of urban dimensions but all are linked by intense social, economic and cultural flows, with a highly attractive metropolis – the so-called ‘greater Milan’ – five cities of significant size in Turin, Bologna, Florence, Genoa and Venice-Mestre, a series of medium to medium-large cities – Brescia and Bergamo, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Parma and Piacenza – and a dense network of other urban areas full of history and solid economic and cultural roots (Pavia, Trento and Udine, to name but a few). In between, there are small towns and historic villages in the Apennines and along the coasts, with very varied and often well-integrated economic systems. A unique area of its kind, in Europe.
The agricultural hills of the Langhe and Treviso areas; the ‘Motor Valley’ of Emilia; the mechatronics and aerospace hubs in Varese, Gallarate and Busto Arsizio; the textile areas between Como and Biella; the mechanical and furnishing industries in Brianza; the shipbuilding and chemical industries; the centres of specialisation for metalworking and the packaging industry in Emilia; and so on and so forth: a portfolio of industrial excellence that has helped Italy become the world’s fifth largest exporter, to the tune of 670 billion euros in 2023.
An economic and financial giant, thanks to the growing influence of banks? Not only that.
Our maps testify to the presence of numerous universities, several of which (Milan, Turin and Bologna, above all) sit at the top of international rankings; to high-level research centres for the life sciences, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare and good nutrition; to world-class culture, including music and theatre, visual arts, science, high-tech publishing and literary activities; and to tourism. So, places and flows. People and ideas in motion. A civilisation of machines and relationships. A world with a taste for its roots and a global outlook. An area that is easily recognised in Carlo Maria Cipolla’s essential definition, when he speaks of ‘Italians accustomed, since the Middle Ages, to producing, in the shadow of bell towers, beautiful things that please the world’.
High-speed rail has been a real game-changer for the flow of people over the past ten years: you can live in Turin or Bologna and, with just an hour’s journey (the usual metropolitan time in Paris, London or New York), work in Milan, or vice versa. You can live in a village in the Po Valley and be connected to the rest of Europe, the US or China. You can feel part of an urban population and at the same time enjoy the silence of hillside villages. This is a changing world. A world that balances the metropolis with small villages. And it’s something that only this Italian area in question can provide.
So, does that mean everything is all right? Are we all happy? Of course not. Because flows of people – if they are to enable not only economic productivity but also boost the quality of life – need infrastructure that is both tangible and intangible. That means efficient transport, and not only for high-speed trains (the shortcomings and inefficiencies of the Ferrovie Nord railway lines in Lombardy are increasingly the reason for protests by tens of thousands of commuters). It means services. And fast and stable digital connections (a decent 5G network that matches the socio-economic situation described above is still a long way away). These are all unsatisfactory elements. Investments driven by the NRRP should provide some solutions, although doubts and delays are growing.
The economy is dynamic, rapid and productive. The way local authorities are structured lags behind. The law on metropolitan areas, which has never been fully implemented, is some way off from providing local political solutions and services in line with the new urban and social mobility. And there is an almost complete lack of general political choices around health, schooling (a fundamental part of cultural and civic integration and training) and assistance for weak and fragile individuals and social groups.
We must ‘combine development and social cohesion in medium-sized cities’, warns Aldo Bonomi, a sociologist focused on ‘molecular capitalism’ and the dynamics of the ‘infinite city’ (Il Sole24Ore, 26 March). Of course. But ‘civic infrastructure‘ and ‘collaborative networks’ are lacking. Services, to be precise. And good governance of the area, unshackled from neo-municipalism and the closed idea of suffocating identities, hostile to the essential cultures of plural, open and welcoming identities. Indeed, just as the Italian history of the ‘thousand bell towers’ teaches us.
This, then, is the challenge: to support economic sustainably, something that many companies have come to appreciate is not merely a marketing and communication choice, but a real competitive asset. And build new and better community values. Including by trying to govern those phenomena that are altering life in our cities: the devastating effects of mass tourism, the radical negative changes in property values, with Airbnb rents that are destroying historic town centres and drastically reducing the chances of certain middle-aged or young couples of finding a home (la Repubblica, 31 March), and the intolerable rise in the cost of living.
Cities, in order to grow, need cives – citizens who inhabit and live in them in a civic spirit and do not merely ‘use’ them, who frequent public and private places of work, sport, culture and leisure. They animate the flows of people being together. And they think about their future and that of their families in community spaces.
Italy’s history of civil economy, spirit of citizenship and community culture is full of examples and testimonies, from the round and welcoming ‘greater Milan’ to all those small and medium-sized cities and towns in the areas we mentioned above. We must insist on keeping widespread economic development and social inclusion together. Civic virtues persisting. And an aptitude for innovation. The bell’Italia proving, once again, that it knows how to be Italy.
(Photo Getty Images)