Meridiana. 85, 2016. Aree deindustrializzate

Testata: Meridiana • Anno di pubblicazione: 2016
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Volti e risvolti della deindustrializzazione. Alcuni interrogativi sulla contemporaneità
Gabriella Corona

The introduction aims to highlight the main issues addressed in the articles of this volume of «Meridiana». They have been divided into 4 sections. Every section is characterized by different deindustrialization’s implications and problems in the Western world from the 80s to today. The rst part concerns the transition from the social to the territorial question exempli ed by the case of Longwy in the North- eastern of France. In the second part, the articles treat the way by which important industrialized cities of the North-western Italy such as Milan and Turin, have reacted to the deindustrialization. In the third group the cases of the «precarious industries», such as Piombino and Taranto, respectively in Central and Southern Italy, are analyzed. Finally, in the fourth part, two different paths to restore deindustrialized and abandoned areas such as Bagnoli in the Southern Italy, and the Ruhr in Germany, are examined.

Keywords: Deindustrialization; Social and territorial issue; Environmental implications; Regeneration.


Chiedi alla ruggine. Studi e storiografia della deindustrializzazione
Roberta Garruccio

The title’s play on words introduces a survey dedicated to the de-industrialization studies in English language in the inter- and multi-disciplinary literature. The survey focuses on the North American and European countries that were early industrializers, paying particular attention to the studies that consider the historical perspective close up. Drawing upon a growing literature, and covering the period from the crisis of the ’70s to nowadays, the article singles out the most relevant references and identi es three turning points. It also connects basic data and information with a larger interpretation of the emergence and the consolidation of this eld of research among various disciplines and it demonstrates how this body of study has progressively re ned its conceptualizations and de nitions and has broadened not only its focus, but also its methods and its sources in order to study the memory of and the different meanings attributed to job loss and factory closings.

Keywords: Deindustrialization; Factory and mill closings; Industrial decline; Capitalism; Memory; Oral history.


Milano: da metropoli fordista a mecca del real estate
Maria Cristina Gibelli

After the deindustrialization of the ‘70s, Milan has privileged a regeneration model for the reuse of derelict lands that, by the point of view of the author, must be considered as one of the main causes of its recent transition to a ‘Mecca’ for nance and real estate investments. Since the ‘80s, the Milanese local administration has pursued a strategy of deregulation in urban planning and a back-to-the-market approach, which looks quite peculiar if compared with the capacity of self-correction shown over time from other advanced European cities as never subject to a critical review. Analyzing demographic and employment trends in the 2000s, strengths and weaknesses emerge clearly: Milan region is still con rmed as the most economically dynamic in Italy, but a growing decoupling in the development trajectories of the core (accommodating all the job growth) and the ring (accommodating all the demographic growth) is apparent, as the result of an alarming lack in regional planning. Analyzing in more details the reforms implemented in local urban planning and, in particular, the regeneration projects made through an unbalanced and inequitable public/private partnership approach (an approach that has guaranteed large private advantages and poor gains for the commons, that pursued densi cation instead of intensi cation, that enhanced growing segregation of land use, social polarization and skyrocketing corruption), a further possible explanation is given to the unrelenting downgrading in the course of time, since the 80s until today, in the competitive positioning of Milan inside the European urban hierarchy.

Keywords: Deindustrialization; Metropolitan revitalization; Deregulation in urban planning; Urban re generation schemes; Public/private partnership.


Piombino: il lento declino di una città industriale
Annalisa Tonarelli

In some places, the short season of Italian steel industry ended with the demise of the factory and the dismantling of its production sites: plenty of activities was replaced by a vast emptiness that is at once urban, economic, social, as well as symbolic and cultural. But what happened when industries went through a deep crisis, were rst privatized and then bought by a multinational owner, and they loose much of their workers but did not disappear? This is what happened in Piombino, a city of the Tuscany coast, which was founded and had developed around the mills. The aim of this paper – based on extensive research on the eld – is to analyse the strategies implemented during the process of deindustrialisation in Piombino’ steel area. The paper focuses on the e effects of the consistent economic and nancial aids – both national and European – and it explores their effective role in creating favourable conditions for the autonomous and self-sustained development of this area. First, the paper shortly presents the socio-economic context of the Piombino area; secondly it summarizes the distribution of public funds in the district and it highlights the strategies that led their use. Finally, it critically evaluates the results in terms of creating new rms, stimulating economic activities, and expanding the employment.

Keywords: Industrial decline; Steel town; Working class; Industrial restructuring.


Deindustrializzazione e morfologia urbana: il caso di Spina 3 a Torino
Michela Barosio

In order to better understand the deep regeneration of the Spina 3 area in Turin, the paper will outline the industrial development of the city and its effects on the urban morphology. Then the process of progressive deindustrialization of the city is described together with the search of identity of the city of Turin that was worldwide known as the Fiat Company Town, as well as the industrial capital of Italy together with Milan. The industry dismantling process visibly start in 1982, with the closure of the Lingotto Factory. In the following decade, while the deindustrialisation process is going on concerning central urban areas, an innovative an powerful General Urban Plan for the city is approved, as well as a new national planning legislation. The paper analyses how the Urban general plan has been able to rule the conversion of the huge dismantled industrial areas trough the case study of Spina 3, the largest area to be transformed with its more than 1 million square metres extension. The Olympic Winter Games hosted by the city in 2006 gave the city extra funding and became a political goal as well a an accelerator for the city regeneration, especially for the area of Spina 3, where most of the media and athletes facilities were located. In the end the paper tries to report on the results of the regeneration process both in term of urban morphology and in term of social and economic balance.

Keywords: Industrial footprint; Regeneration; Urban morphology; Planning tools. 282


Bagnoli: una dis-missione possibile
Giovanni Dispoto, Antonio di Gennaro

The paper talks about the urban regeneration of the former Western Naples industrial area, metallurgic factory known as Italsider. The factory was created at the beginning of the twentieth century as a public industry. In the ‘70 – at the apex of its activity – it employed up to seven thousand workers; it was active for about a century until it was closed in 1992. After the closing of Italsider, a new urbanistic deal concerning the area took place. In 2005, a master plan for a wider area, including Coroglio-Bagnoli, was approved. The plan was ecologically oriented, promoting low impact development and leisure and touristic projects. Ten years after the formal approval of the Bagnoli master plan, the regeneration of the area, started in the mid of 2000, has stopped. The Bagnolifutura Spa enterprise for urban transformation went broke; the environment remediation of the site is at a 65% of completion, few public facilities have been realized but they never have been utilized and now they are failed. The paper focuses on the status of the regeneration process: one of the most interesting chances of creating a sustainable developing asset for the city of Naples; a challenge about reclaiming an urban area from the environment damages caused by the industrial activity in one of the most appreciated landscape of the Campi Flegrei area.

Keywords: Brown eld site remediation; Regeneration master plan, sustainable urban development.


Taranto, oltre la crisi
Roberto Giannì, Anna Migliaccio

Taranto (Italy) is an heavily industrialized Mediterranean city, branded by a degraded environment and landscape. As Factory City, its environmental records set it apart from the rest of the Western Europe (dioxin and benzopyrene emissions in particular). The old denationalized Ilva steel plant is still the largest in Europe, as well as directly employing the highest number of people in Italy (12.000 individuals), a signi cant consideration during the current economic crisis. In 2012, the Judicial Inquiry «sold out environment» ordered the steel plant seizure alongside the application of the best available techniques (see Industrial Emissions Directive – 2010/75/Eu). Environmentalists and Ngos hope to close the factory and deindustrialize the area. This is strongly opposed by the central and local government and by Trade Unions, but with different and frequently divergent paths. A recent local consultative referendum showed in 2013 that deindustrialization is not even a goal for the majority of Taranto citizens, who face the excruciating dilemma: health vs. jobs. How can we offer the community a future where ecology and economy are able to co-exist? International case studies show how to responsibly both avoid deindustrialization and defend employment in Europe. This can be achieved through the implementation of green technology in the industrial process. The authors underline the importance of diversifying the local economy by creating also employment outside of the steel plant. This could be achieved through the launch of a renewal program in Taranto, with the vision to recover the local environment and landscape and to increase urban quality.

Keywords: Factory city; Environmental crisis; Integrated urban planning; Landscape recovery.


Il caso di Tempelhof: da aeroporto nazista a parco urbano
Federica Dell’Acqua

From Nazi airport and aircraft factory to modern urban park, the study analyses the troubled history of Tempelhof. The research is the result of a direct and personal experience, lasted six months, that allowed the Author to witness how the role of this site changed in recent years. Against the background of Berlin, exemplary melting pot of languages and cultures, Tempelhof represents a model for a new sustainable free-time economy, created through an original process of bottom-up transformation. From the moment Tempelhof ceased to be an airport, Berliners started to use the area for countless outdoor activities. No physical modi cation occurred so the site’s historical identity has been fully preserved. The work also includes the point of view of an «average» visitor of the park, considered as a privileged perspective to understand the issue. The study uses textes about the history of Tempelhof and of the construction of the Nazi airport and press contributions about modern debates concerning the destiny of the site. No one knows what the future will bring to Tempelhof: everything is still in progress. This means there is plenty of room for discussion and debate about new meanings of this space in the heart of the city, that Berliners already consider a huge «gift» and an opportunity.

Keywords: Berlin; Airport; Urban park; Bottom-up transformation.


La deindustrializzazione nel bacino siderurgico di Longwy. Le trasformazioni del lavoro salariato
Jean-Luc Deshayes

The steel area of Longwy, from the recovery of the 80’s to recent developments, is a special eld for analyzing the links between industrial restructuring and class relations. An employee situated in an interprofessional space of the wage built from the working position is replaced by an employable continuously invited to reduce his/her supposed distance to employment.

Keywords: Plant closing; Public rhetoric; Class relations; Employability; Border work.


La rinascita della Ruhr
Andreas Kipar

The story of the regeneration of the Ruhr Basin began after the extractive industry decline. This activity transformed the territory into a nerve center and driving force of the entire German economy. A dif cult post-industrial transformation was kicked off. This process decided to not stop at the physical repossession of the industrial areas and the re-remediation of polluted soils, but it also placed emphasis on territorial issues, urban planning, eco-naturalistic and socio-political and cultural rights of large industrial areas in the process of transformation. The starting point of the change was the Iba, the International Construction Exhibition, that is one of the city’s planning and urban design tool. Iba is consolidated in Germany and it is useful to develop impulses through new ideas that start from planning and land redevelopment. From that point, the region has been very successful: jobs opportunities related to tourism (focal point of Iba), decontaminated areas, public re-appropriation of industrial areas, the nomination of Essen as European Capital of Culture 2010, the recognition of industrial heritage as an Unesco site and the nomination of Essen as Green Capital 2017. Nowadays the process is still in evolution and it has continuously been integrated with the most modern and innovative tools in the eld ecological, social and economic sustainability.

Keywords: Post-industrial transformations; Contemporary tourism; Remediation/ regeneration; Territorial policies.


Memorie dal cratere. Uno studio sul sisma del 1980 tra immagini e testimonianze
Gabriele Ivo Moscaritolo

On november 23, 1980 an earthquake struck inland areas of Campania and Basilicata; it was one of the most disastrous catastrophes of recent Italian history for the extent of the affected area and the number of victims and injured. National media have often focused their attention on the rebuilding period and its corruption and clientelism scandals and they contributed to shape a representation of seism neglecting the tragic experience of affected people. In order to investigate this experience, memory is a privileged eld: the stories of witnesses who lived in those areas before the catastrophe, who attended the nature’s rage and then experienced following changes, may open new scenarios for understanding large-scale disasters which, by imposing themselves as authentic divides, change the path of entire communities. Indeed, besides informing us about events which can be overlooked by media and by of cial history, memory helps us to understand people’s own interpretations and opinions, the way they faced and reworked the trauma, the signi cance that, 36 years after, that tragic event takes. The paper shows the different phases of the «path of memory» analyzing interviews to witnesses conducted in some severely affected villages. What comes to light is the individual and collective interpretation of the past, how the protagonists of that time give meaning and sense to the change, through direct and indirect experiences, stories, opinions and expectations.

Keywords: Earthquake; Memory; Experience; Case study.


Bagnoli oggi: quale futuro? Conversazione con Vezio De Lucia a cura di Gabriella Corona
a cura di Gabriella Corona

Bagnoli is a place of extraordinary beauty on the west coast of Naples. For a long time in Bagnoli a steel and coal factory has been active, which closed down at the beginning of the 1990s. Thanks to the mayor Antonio Bassolino, a project for Bagnoli was approved, which aimed at restoring the original environmental feature of the area. However the project (the opening of the neighbourhood toward the sea, the formation of a big public park, the improvement of the rail transportation system) wasn’t accomplished, due to the dif culties related to the remediation of polluted soil. This delay recently provided the excuse for a new project of the prime Minister to be accomplished directly by the national government. This caused an harsh con ict between the municipality and the national government. On this issue Gabriella Corona interviews the urbanist Vezio De Lucia, former City Councillor responsible for town planning. De Lucia rmly advocates the original project for Bagnoli.

Keywords Southern Italy; Recovery plan for Bagnoli; Soil pollution; Institutional con ict.