How the megacities of Europe stole a continent’s wealth
While hi-tech cosmopolitan centres like Milan flourish financially and culturally, former industrial towns continue to decline
Night-time haunts go in and out of fashion, but the Bar Basso in Milan, which opened in 1967, remains one of the city’s most venerable social institutions. Embodying a very Milanese combination of stylish prosperity and tasteful design, it is a favourite destination for the area’s creative elite and the discreetly wealthy.....MUCH MORE
Tucked away in a corner, Pierluigi Dialuce is explaining why, if a political nightmare unfolds in the rest of Italy, the city he has made his home will be able to cope.
*****“It’s very possible that the country is heading for a moment when the hard right and Matteo Salvini take power,” he says, “Perhaps in an alliance with the Brothers of Italy party. We’re talking Viktor Orbán-style politics at that point. But Milan will stay as it is. There’s too much money here for that not to be the case. And then we will be even more different from the rest of Italy. But that’s fine by me. Better that way, in fact.”
Dialuce is a thirtysomething financial consultant with one of the myriad multinational organisations that have made Milan a service hub for international capital. He grew up in Rome, but came north 13 years ago to read economics at the famous Bocconi University. For a while he worked for Barclays bank and then had a few brief spells abroad. Now he intends to stay in Italy’s richest, most cosmopolitan city.
“This place has changed enormously in recent years. It’s much more international,” he says. “There’s been so much investment and there’s so much culture going on. Stuff that you won’t find in the rest of Italy. The ‘Milanese’ don’t exist anymore. Milan is made up of the professionals who have come here because there are opportunities that don’t exist back home. They’re the best of Italy. It’s a kind of natural selection that goes on, creating a community which is much more European, open and tolerant in its mindset. Milan is not Italy.”
Dialuce’s confidence is borne out by a poll carried out last year which found that 85% of residents would not wish to live anywhere else, while 81% believed that their city should be seen as an economic role model to emulate. But while the likes of Paris, Amsterdam, Munich and Berlin might reasonably aspire to compete with Milan, the rest of Italy, after 20 years of economic stagnation, can only dream....
HT FT Alphaville's Further Reading post but I've no idea when.
Here is the whole schmear.
