The shadows of Milan beyond the “week”. And the history of Assolombarda from dynamism to social values
The splendour of Milan is intensified on the occasion of certain anniversaries, including fashion, interior design, culture and international glamour. Fashion Week, for example, between February and March and then between September and October. And, above all, Design Week in mid-April, with the world’s most important Salone del Mobile and the many events of the Fuori Salone, where trends, experiments and projects are discussed in an attempt to make the places where we live and work in our cities a little better.
An everyday party atmosphere, from the joy of getting together to the surprise of meeting new people. Welcoming and open to conversation. A frenzy of business. Money and ideas. All of this with that very Milanese and global chic that knows how to combine tradition, innovation, industrial pride in the best of Made in Italy and world knowledge. Precisely Milan.
This year, however, there was no shortage of shadows.
There was concern among the sector’s operators about the consequences of the seismic shocks caused by the White House’s policy of imposing tariffs on international trade (furniture has an international reach and Milan has always promoted the good culture of open and competitive markets). But beyond the tourist and commercial success of the events, the various aspects of Design Week have deepened the public’s critical reflection on the current state of Milan and the long-term effects that certain phenomena, linked to the cost of living and housing, are having on the city’s soul, on its capacity for integration and, therefore, on its future.
Recent articles have highlighted conflicting economic and social issues and growing inequalities.
Here is Milan, which has risen to 11th place among the richest cities in the world in terms of the number of billionaires and millionaires, after New York and San Francisco, Tokyo and Singapore, London, Paris and Hong Kong, with 115,000 of the very rich: a number that has grown by 24% in the last ten years. In short, an increasingly attractive metropolis, made even more attractive to millionaires fleeing London after the change in the UK’s less favourable tax laws. And it has long since been noticed by the most discerning circles of fashion and global commerce: Monte Napoleon has higher property values than Fifth Avenue in New York.
The high prices of luxury buildings have infected much of the metropolitan real estate fabric, with damaging effects. “Police on the run from Milan. Housing costs are too high,” denounced Chief of Police Bruno Megale (la Repubblica, 11 April). Atm public transport can’t find drivers for trams, so it’s converting a former depot into affordable housing for its employees. Young university students (there are more than 200,000 in the city) live in student halls in the suburbs, in Mind (the former Expo area) or in the towns of the metropolitan area, in Sesto San Giovanni and Cologno Monzese. And even young middle-class couples are leaving the urban area for the hinterland towns. In short, Milan welcomes those who can afford to spend a lot of money, and drives out or turns away those with less income. Milan, a city of millionaires that leaves the crumbs to the others”, comments Giangiacomo Schiavi, one of the journalists most attuned to the inner workings of the city, “rich, yes, but happy?” (Corriere della Sera, 12 April).
The splendour of business and social tension. The charm of exclusive clubs and the hardships of the once working-class neighbourhoods now undergoing gentrification. A Milan of contrast and of struggle. And of old and new poverty (use of the charity Caritas Ambrosiana is a good barometer of this).
These are far from new issues (we have often discussed them in this blog). The positive thing is that it is finally being discussed, in a critical but also self-critical way.
“Milan is absorbing some of the international problems of metropolises, from high rents to safety. And the primary problem I feel is the growing gap between those who can afford a certain standard of living and those who cannot. And too many low-paid jobs are making rents unaffordable,” said Mayor Beppe Sala a few days ago in an interview with Agnese Pini, editor of Quotidiano Nazionale/ Il Giorno (QN, 11 April). And in newspapers and cultural circles (the Centro Studi Grande Milano, to name but one), the phenomenon of the relationship between the competitiveness and economic attractiveness of the metropolis and the crisis of the tradition of social inclusion and solidarity has been analysed for some years. With incentives for public administrations to better manage urban change and respond to citizens’ needs for development and quality of life. Something is changing.
To meet the challenge of the future, Milan must rethink itself. To capitalise on the virtues of economic dynamism and provide answers to the problems of quality of life and environmental and social sustainability. It remains the metropolis that hosts 36.4% of Italy’s multinationals and generates 13.4% of Italy’s GDP. But it is also the place where the values of a job well done, business ethics and hospitality prevail, and where, in the future too, “Milanese” will become “Milanese” through personal qualities and professional and social integrity.
Strong themes and values, which also recur in the industrial world. And whose echo can be clearly heard in the pages of “Insieme – Assolombarda, la nostra storia” (Together – Assolombarda, our story), the book edited by the Assolombarda Foundation, just published by Marsilio and presented yesterday at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, a symbolic place for good relations between business and culture. Piccolo Teatro was founded in 1947 by Giorgio Strehler and Paolo Grassi also with the contribution of major Milanese entrepreneurs: Pirelli, Falck, Borletti, De Angeli Frua, Marinotti, as well as Edison and Snia Viscosa, etc.).
The book is a history of corporate and social responsibility, innovation, productivity and the ability to take on general values and interests, not just those of registered companies. It includes speeches of the former presidents of the Association (Bonomi, Rocca, Meomartini, Bracco, Perini, Benedini) and of the current president, Alessandro Spada, and of the general manager, Alessandro Scarabelli, as well as the analyses and judgements of external figures, such as Piero Bassetti and Mario Monti, Cardinal Ravasi and the rector of the University of Bicocca, Giovanna Iannantuoni, as well as Amalia Ercoli Finzi, Carlo Ratti, Carlo Sangalli, Ferruccio de Bortoli and Salvatore Carrubba.
A versatile and dynamic picture of Milan. Convinced that “we have to fly to make Italy fly” (the exemplary strategy of Gianfelice Rocca’s Assolombarda presidency).
The book provides a better understanding of the most obvious aspects and deep roots of economic and social developments, and of the insights that can be drawn from phenomena that involve not only politics and public administration, but also civil society, economic forces and culture.
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else,” wrote Italo Calvino in 1972 in “Invisible Cities”. He added: “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours”.
So what questions are we asking in Milan today? To remain faithful, even in the midst of radical change, to the ability to combine personal initiative and social values, productivity and inclusion, economic competitiveness and solidarity. Wealth and measure, elegance and rigour. Success and good, open and creative culture. A special blend of capitalism and reformism, market and general interests. A special “social capital”. To serve as a national and European paradigm of how to effectively reject the synthesis of democracy, market and welfare. And how public and private enterprise, production and critical culture, the creation of economic value and the growing space for civil and social values can coexist in a synergy, albeit a laborious one.
The history of Assolombarda reveals some constant underlying characteristics. An open approach to economic and industrial relations, with the awareness of being in the circuits of international competition. An attitude to change that makes the city extremely receptive to innovative impulses, be they entrepreneurial, technological, cultural or organisational. And a solid understanding of the market as a well-organised and therefore effectively regulated competitive space.
In short, there is a sound industrial pride. And a dynamism that is also made up of exchanges and relationships, as well as production specialisation in the mechanical, electrical, rubber, steel, energy and chemical sectors, which flank the traditional textile and agri-food sectors. A peculiar model of development, in the “big Milan” and metropolitan area, with industry structured across several sectors and without a dominant presence (unlike Turin, an automotive city with a strong Fiat imprint). And industry itself, the cornerstone of growth, is confronted in the metropolitan economic fabric with other business cultures, finance and trade, services and newspaper and book publishing. And with universities. A real chorus. An interweaving of interests and values, forces and ideas, attentive to the discovery of what is changing.
Milanese culture is therefore “polytechnic”, an original synthesis of humanistic and scientific knowledge. The sense of beauty is accompanied by the intelligence of new technology. The awareness of the role of history is faced with a pronounced tendency to engage with the avant-garde. And in the economic field, “industrial humanism” is the benchmark for increasing the competitiveness of Italian-made products on global markets. A strength that remains even in times of crisis and radical change.
The installation Library Of Light for Salone del Mobile di Milano, April 2025 (photo Getty Images)
The splendour of Milan is intensified on the occasion of certain anniversaries, including fashion, interior design, culture and international glamour. Fashion Week, for example, between February and March and then between September and October. And, above all, Design Week in mid-April, with the world’s most important Salone del Mobile and the many events of the Fuori Salone, where trends, experiments and projects are discussed in an attempt to make the places where we live and work in our cities a little better.
An everyday party atmosphere, from the joy of getting together to the surprise of meeting new people. Welcoming and open to conversation. A frenzy of business. Money and ideas. All of this with that very Milanese and global chic that knows how to combine tradition, innovation, industrial pride in the best of Made in Italy and world knowledge. Precisely Milan.
This year, however, there was no shortage of shadows.
There was concern among the sector’s operators about the consequences of the seismic shocks caused by the White House’s policy of imposing tariffs on international trade (furniture has an international reach and Milan has always promoted the good culture of open and competitive markets). But beyond the tourist and commercial success of the events, the various aspects of Design Week have deepened the public’s critical reflection on the current state of Milan and the long-term effects that certain phenomena, linked to the cost of living and housing, are having on the city’s soul, on its capacity for integration and, therefore, on its future.
Recent articles have highlighted conflicting economic and social issues and growing inequalities.
Here is Milan, which has risen to 11th place among the richest cities in the world in terms of the number of billionaires and millionaires, after New York and San Francisco, Tokyo and Singapore, London, Paris and Hong Kong, with 115,000 of the very rich: a number that has grown by 24% in the last ten years. In short, an increasingly attractive metropolis, made even more attractive to millionaires fleeing London after the change in the UK’s less favourable tax laws. And it has long since been noticed by the most discerning circles of fashion and global commerce: Monte Napoleon has higher property values than Fifth Avenue in New York.
The high prices of luxury buildings have infected much of the metropolitan real estate fabric, with damaging effects. “Police on the run from Milan. Housing costs are too high,” denounced Chief of Police Bruno Megale (la Repubblica, 11 April). Atm public transport can’t find drivers for trams, so it’s converting a former depot into affordable housing for its employees. Young university students (there are more than 200,000 in the city) live in student halls in the suburbs, in Mind (the former Expo area) or in the towns of the metropolitan area, in Sesto San Giovanni and Cologno Monzese. And even young middle-class couples are leaving the urban area for the hinterland towns. In short, Milan welcomes those who can afford to spend a lot of money, and drives out or turns away those with less income. Milan, a city of millionaires that leaves the crumbs to the others”, comments Giangiacomo Schiavi, one of the journalists most attuned to the inner workings of the city, “rich, yes, but happy?” (Corriere della Sera, 12 April).
The splendour of business and social tension. The charm of exclusive clubs and the hardships of the once working-class neighbourhoods now undergoing gentrification. A Milan of contrast and of struggle. And of old and new poverty (use of the charity Caritas Ambrosiana is a good barometer of this).
These are far from new issues (we have often discussed them in this blog). The positive thing is that it is finally being discussed, in a critical but also self-critical way.
“Milan is absorbing some of the international problems of metropolises, from high rents to safety. And the primary problem I feel is the growing gap between those who can afford a certain standard of living and those who cannot. And too many low-paid jobs are making rents unaffordable,” said Mayor Beppe Sala a few days ago in an interview with Agnese Pini, editor of Quotidiano Nazionale/ Il Giorno (QN, 11 April). And in newspapers and cultural circles (the Centro Studi Grande Milano, to name but one), the phenomenon of the relationship between the competitiveness and economic attractiveness of the metropolis and the crisis of the tradition of social inclusion and solidarity has been analysed for some years. With incentives for public administrations to better manage urban change and respond to citizens’ needs for development and quality of life. Something is changing.
To meet the challenge of the future, Milan must rethink itself. To capitalise on the virtues of economic dynamism and provide answers to the problems of quality of life and environmental and social sustainability. It remains the metropolis that hosts 36.4% of Italy’s multinationals and generates 13.4% of Italy’s GDP. But it is also the place where the values of a job well done, business ethics and hospitality prevail, and where, in the future too, “Milanese” will become “Milanese” through personal qualities and professional and social integrity.
Strong themes and values, which also recur in the industrial world. And whose echo can be clearly heard in the pages of “Insieme – Assolombarda, la nostra storia” (Together – Assolombarda, our story), the book edited by the Assolombarda Foundation, just published by Marsilio and presented yesterday at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, a symbolic place for good relations between business and culture. Piccolo Teatro was founded in 1947 by Giorgio Strehler and Paolo Grassi also with the contribution of major Milanese entrepreneurs: Pirelli, Falck, Borletti, De Angeli Frua, Marinotti, as well as Edison and Snia Viscosa, etc.).
The book is a history of corporate and social responsibility, innovation, productivity and the ability to take on general values and interests, not just those of registered companies. It includes speeches of the former presidents of the Association (Bonomi, Rocca, Meomartini, Bracco, Perini, Benedini) and of the current president, Alessandro Spada, and of the general manager, Alessandro Scarabelli, as well as the analyses and judgements of external figures, such as Piero Bassetti and Mario Monti, Cardinal Ravasi and the rector of the University of Bicocca, Giovanna Iannantuoni, as well as Amalia Ercoli Finzi, Carlo Ratti, Carlo Sangalli, Ferruccio de Bortoli and Salvatore Carrubba.
A versatile and dynamic picture of Milan. Convinced that “we have to fly to make Italy fly” (the exemplary strategy of Gianfelice Rocca’s Assolombarda presidency).
The book provides a better understanding of the most obvious aspects and deep roots of economic and social developments, and of the insights that can be drawn from phenomena that involve not only politics and public administration, but also civil society, economic forces and culture.
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else,” wrote Italo Calvino in 1972 in “Invisible Cities”. He added: “You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours”.
So what questions are we asking in Milan today? To remain faithful, even in the midst of radical change, to the ability to combine personal initiative and social values, productivity and inclusion, economic competitiveness and solidarity. Wealth and measure, elegance and rigour. Success and good, open and creative culture. A special blend of capitalism and reformism, market and general interests. A special “social capital”. To serve as a national and European paradigm of how to effectively reject the synthesis of democracy, market and welfare. And how public and private enterprise, production and critical culture, the creation of economic value and the growing space for civil and social values can coexist in a synergy, albeit a laborious one.
The history of Assolombarda reveals some constant underlying characteristics. An open approach to economic and industrial relations, with the awareness of being in the circuits of international competition. An attitude to change that makes the city extremely receptive to innovative impulses, be they entrepreneurial, technological, cultural or organisational. And a solid understanding of the market as a well-organised and therefore effectively regulated competitive space.
In short, there is a sound industrial pride. And a dynamism that is also made up of exchanges and relationships, as well as production specialisation in the mechanical, electrical, rubber, steel, energy and chemical sectors, which flank the traditional textile and agri-food sectors. A peculiar model of development, in the “big Milan” and metropolitan area, with industry structured across several sectors and without a dominant presence (unlike Turin, an automotive city with a strong Fiat imprint). And industry itself, the cornerstone of growth, is confronted in the metropolitan economic fabric with other business cultures, finance and trade, services and newspaper and book publishing. And with universities. A real chorus. An interweaving of interests and values, forces and ideas, attentive to the discovery of what is changing.
Milanese culture is therefore “polytechnic”, an original synthesis of humanistic and scientific knowledge. The sense of beauty is accompanied by the intelligence of new technology. The awareness of the role of history is faced with a pronounced tendency to engage with the avant-garde. And in the economic field, “industrial humanism” is the benchmark for increasing the competitiveness of Italian-made products on global markets. A strength that remains even in times of crisis and radical change.
The installation Library Of Light for Salone del Mobile di Milano, April 2025 (photo Getty Images)