As Pels and Salemink But his private behavior and his unpublished manuscripts reveal a different and more complex personality. And I Baria e i Cunama, like other monographs he wrote, juxtaposes stereotypical assumptions with confutation of the widely shared belief that a big gap existed between the two cultures. On the one hand, it reminds us that outside the academy a whole body of literature exists that contains relevant ethnographic information. This literature is valuable because in many cases it is the only source of information we have about Eritrean groups at the time of the Italian conquest and during the colonial regime.
Or, more correctly, it is one of the few sources exhibiting how the Italians perceived the Africans at the outset of the colonial period. Despite the fact that the importance of this literature is largely acknowledged, it has been little studied. Finally, it is possible to highlight and start to reconstruct the processes through which professional anthropology both informed and was informed by this accidental ethnography.
It has been translated and published by permission of Liguori Editore. For a discussion of the differences between the two schools see Taylor and The battle of Adwa between Italians and Abyssinians was the biggest defeat a European army suffered in the whole colonial history of Africa. About four thousand Italian and two thousand colonial soldiers died or were captured. This quotation, which refers to early British anthropology, well describes a trend that lasted in Italian anthropology for a much longer period.
For the whitening process of the Egyptians see also Bernal As Sanders has noted Sergi was not totally out of step with his time. See, for instance, Perini and Pollera For an analysis of Italian travel literature in the early colonial period see also Lombardi-Diop, this volume.
Pollera himself was of upper-class origin and could speak and read English and French. His private library shows he was informed about many issues discussed internationally within the colonial debate. The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. Da Leonessa, Padre M. Rassegna di studi di questo dopoguerra. Five Theses on Ethnography as Colonial Practice. Tre anni in Eritrea. I Baria e i Cunama.
La donna in Etiopia. Burrow Saw in the Land of the Bushmen. Il corpo, la mente e le passioni. Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective. Antropologia della stirpe camitica. A Study of the Origin of the European People. Istruzioni per lo studio della colonia Eritrea. Antropologia, discorso giuridico e politiche sessuali interrazziali nella colonia Eritrea — Toward a Democratic Future, ed.
Essays on Biological Anthropology, ed. University of Wisconsin Press. Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London and New York: The Italian is not racist otherwise. This division was a heritage of fascism. Before Italians had a human and a friendly attitude. To be sure, they did not bring our mothers to restaurants or to the cinema. On the one hand, she suggests that Italians had a friendly attitude toward the colonized, but on the other hand she reveals that colonial society was deeply divided along racial lines.
This paper intends to unravel this apparent contradiction.
- A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-Unification to the Present;
- Letteratura artistica: febbraio .
- Theatro de JoÁ¢o dAndrade Corvo: I, O Alliciador (Portuguese Edition).
- Key Facts on Turkey: Everything you need to know about Turkey.
This periodization is commonly shared by many Eritreans and Italo-Eritreans. I also leave out of the picture the conquest years —96 because they were deeply different from the following period. Ordinary Italians, by contrast, are supposed to have been immune to racist attitudes and inclined to have friendly relations with the colonized. As in any other colony, in Eritrea the relations between the colonizers and the colonized were by no means idyllic. It is true, however, that in the period under examination Eritrea experienced a lesser degree of racial segregation compared to the years after , and to a certain extent also compared to other African colonies.
Physical and social proximity between colonizers and colonized—interracial sexual relations included— calls for very cautious examination. In this chapter I will not explore the nature of interracial sexual relations in Eritrea I do so elsewhere ,10 but I will provide different examples that point out how the intermingling of the colonizers with the colonized could coexist with racial arrogance and abuse, and with an overall structure of racial discrimination. Still, the unusual level of intermixing, in contrast both to post Eritrea and to other colonies, is worth attention, because it signals that the relations between colonizers and colonized in Eritrea assumed particular characteristics in the period from to The construction and preservation of colonial hierarchies could take different forms in different contexts.
Strict racial segregation was but one of the tools that colonizers could use. A private company opened the way, and then the state stepped in. The colonizers used local chiefs against one another. Also similar to the usual pattern were the killings, the burning of African villages, the fear of African rebellion, and the brutal repression. In the early s, the colonial government expropriated more than 50 percent of the cultivated land in the Eritrean highlands with the intention of promoting the settlement of landless Italian peasants.
In , local chief Bahta Hagos led an anticolonial rebellion. Italy lost four thousand Italian and two thousand colonial soldiers. Adwa was a unique event in African colonial history and established unique conditions for the development of the Italian colony. The defeat had a dramatic impact on Italian public opinion. Both in the streets and in the Parliament, colonial opponents demanded a complete end to colonial adventures Rainero The government, however, opted for keeping the colony, but at the lowest possible cost, both politically and economically.
It appointed a civilian, Ferdinando Martini — , as governor of Eritrea and gave him a clear mandate: The two dangers were intimately connected, since an Eritrean revolt was likely to prompt an Ethiopian attack. After Adwa, therefore, the government silently dropped the expropriation decrees issued in the early s and returned the land to Eritrean villagers. In the highlands, the concessions to Italians amounted to about 2 percent of the cultivated land. By using Eritreans, and not Italians, as cannon fodder, the Italian government was able to continue pursuing an expansionist colonial policy in Somalia and Libya without running the risk of the political backlash that the death of Italian soldiers could have caused Scardigli Especially from the conquest of Libya —12 on, Eritrea constantly provided a large contingent of soldiers known as ascari to the Italian colonial army.
The Eritrean case, however, stands out because the colonial army absorbed a particularly high racial hierarchies in colonial eritrea 85 percentage of the local labor force. The ascari, in fact, largely outnumbered Eritreans who worked for the Italians as agricultural or industrial wageworkers. Furthermore, the income of the ascari, as well as of seasonal wageworkers, helped shield peasants from starvation when crop failures or locust invasions occurred.
Prolonged peace and the development of veterinary services allowed for the considerable growth of livestock. Overall, this was a period of food security for Eritrean peasants. Another obvious consequence of the limit on land alienation was that only a small percentage of Italian settlers lived off the land.
In , sixtytwo Italian concessionaires shared a total of 6, hectares in the highlands Tekeste At the time, the Italian community numbered 2, In other words, the community as a whole was small, and concessionaires were only a minor fraction of it. Concessions, however, did not correspondingly increase, also because there was little interested in investing Italian capital in Eritrea. Such an image, however, would be misleading in the Eritrean case. Among the Italians in Eritrea there were many more workmen, craftsmen, and masons than landowners. But if one looks at the social composition, namely at the large percentage of poor whites, then one should rather liken the Italian community in Eritrea to the white communities of settler colonies of North or Southern Africa.
Speranze e glorie; Le tre capitali: Torino, Firenze, Roma by Edmondo De Amicis
Racial and class hierarchies did not always overlap. This was a source of concern for the colonial government, and a source of tension for Italians who competed with Africans for similar jobs. However, the Italian community was too small to allow for the existence of businesses that served whites only. Mixing with Eritreans was an economic necessity for Italian workingclass settlers, craftsmen, and small traders, and even for some members of the upper class.
As a consequence, Eritrea saw a degree of intermingling between colo- 86 giulia barrera nizers and colonized during the era prior to racial laws that surprised Western visitors. In September of , a reporter for National Geographic touring Eritrea noticed, to his amazement, how an Italian shopkeeper could serve African customers: In no other black colony, in my experience, have I seen white shopkeepers, unembarrassed, selling wares for a few cents to native customers.
The trend that I am describing coexisted with others. In , almost 80 percent of the European men older than sixteen were unmarried, and quite a few of the married ones did not have their wife with them. White women were few and mostly married. There were more than 1, single European men, while single European women numbered only 73 De Angelis Since the very beginning of Italian rule in Eritrea, colonial authorities had set up state-controlled brothels.
Long-term residents, however, tended to leave prostitutes to soldiers and preferred more stable sexual partners for themselves. The colonial government did not approve of interracial concubinage, but it did not have the political strength to promote the migration to the colony of Italian women.
As a result, it could do little to prevent Italian men from taking African concubines. By and large, the government could only wait until the ratio of Italian women to men gradually became more balanced. I should emphasize that I am talking about perceptions, not about the actual threat that Africans posed. Among Italian settlers, fear of the Eritreans occasionally surfaced. The births of many colonies were tainted by bloodshed.
This was especially true for settler colonies, where vast land expropriation took place. In colonies like Algeria, Kenya, and Rhodesia the colonizers successfully crushed African resistance by ruthless repression. But the founding event that remained deeply entrenched in Italian memory, unlike that of other colonies, was a war with an external enemy, not an internal rebellion.
It was a war in which only the military participated, and which did not cause victims among Italian civilians. The memory of Adwa suggested that danger was more likely to come from outside than from inside the colony. And an external enemy, although dangerous, is less unsettling than an internal one. As already mentioned, the colonial government considered an Eritrean rebellion or an Ethiopian attack a serious danger for the colony, and therefore operated in order to prevent them. During the period that I am considering, in fact, it seems that Italians perceived Eritrea as a safe place.
The large Eritrean participation in the colonial army also contributed to Italian perception of Eritrea as a safe place. Italians came to have complete trust in their Eritrean soldiers. Also colonial authorities did not spare praise for them. Intermingling between colonizers and colonized, however, did not necessarily imply a respectful or friendly relationship. Meaningful in this regard is the story of Oscar Agresti, by any standard a rogue. He went to Eritrea in , at the age of twenty-seven; he initially worked as a gardener and then as a mason.
He lived for several years with a local woman, by whom he had six children. Before the government decided to expel him from the colony in , Agresti had accumulated a record of wrongdoing, mostly against Eritreans. And to make his lifestyle even more unbecoming, he behaved in all—from food to clothing—like a native of the lowest kind. We do not know what Oscar thought of the Eritreans he abused.
Whether he considered Eritreans equal to any other human being, biologically inferior, or backward but susceptible to civilization is beside the point. More relevant to our discussion is that—in all likelihood— one of the reasons he found Eritrea attractive was that he thought that in the colony he could get away with his wrongdoing more easily than in Italy. And it is equally likely that, once in Eritrea, he treasured and exploited a political system that granted him, as an Italian, a privileged position with respect to the Eritreans.
This attitude was by no means unusual among white settlers. There were certain variations from governor to governor, with some e. We can thus follow such guidelines in order to analyze Italian racial policy in the postAdwa period. Colonial authorities were not at all pleased by the presence of a large contingent of proletarians among Italian colonists. Since the Italian must be respected by the native, it is necessary that European migration be limited. It should comprise only craftsmen, people who can supervise the work of the native workers, or people who have some capital.
We thus tried to discourage the mass of proletarians and people who do not have any skills from migration to Eritrea, because they would be in a social condition lower than that of the natives. There are already Italians of this sort in the colony. There are cases of Italians who have been living for months begging from the natives; needless to say we must eliminate such elements. All the more so considering that the Italian worker here is in such a condition only because here he has a much higher standard of living than in Italy.
He almost 90 giulia barrera always maintains a servant and a concubine. He certainly spends less than he would in Italy for them, but he spends all that he earns. And when he becomes unemployed, he ends up begging, or being supported by his concubine. The colony dramatically failed in its proclaimed goal—to provide an outlet for Italian migration—but succeeded in limiting the disgrace of having destitute Italians side by side with Eritreans.
Italian workers in Eritrea numbered in the hundreds. They made up an important component of the Italian community only because the community as a whole was small. Another tool typically used in the colonies to mark racial hierarchies was urban segregation. The domain in which Italian racial policy departed most dramatically from that of the British and the French was education. Martini could clearly see the political hazard of having educated Africans in a colony where more than 10 percent of the Europeans were illiterate. He opened three schools for male children of chiefs and other notables.
Such schools had a strong vocational character and imparted elementary education equivalent to the Italian third grade Tekeste Otherwise, the Italian government remained adamant in denying Eritreans access to higher education. The assimilation of the colonized was not part of Italian colonial rhetoric, let alone colonial practice. Eritreans, of course, resented such limitation. The Austrian reacted by biting the sentinel. The military proposed to amend the law, introducing an exception for African sentinels. For the military, in this circumstance, the need of enhancing military authority prevailed over racial concerns.
After the conquest stage, when the use of force generally prevailed, the colonial state needed to attain internal legitimization by means other than machine guns. In Eritrea as elsewhere, settlers by and large wanted more land and a coercive system that forced Eritreans to work for them for a low salary. The colonial government, however, had learned the hard way that it could not afford to expropriate large amounts of land in the highlands. Furthermore, as already mentioned, during the governorships of Martini — racial hierarchies in colonial eritrea 93 and Salvago Raggi —15 , colonial authorities realized that letting Eritrean peasants farm the highlands was not only politically expedient, but also economically convenient.
In Eritrea, then, the colonial state was certainly willing to serve the interests of Italian capital. Martini, thus, exposed the wrongdoing of the concessionaires: Some [of the concessionaires] let their concessions to the natives for an extravagant rent. Some took advantage of the water sources in their concessions or in their vicinities.
Their contract provided for the free access of the natives to the water. Instead, they imposed tolls and rights of way. Others extorted money from the natives every time they had to pass near their concessions. Many abuses had ensued, at the expense of both Italian taxpayers and Eritrean subjects. But Martini was even more outraged by the military lifestyle, which damaged Italian prestige.
Since Capucci is white, Italian, and an engineer, should we allow him to whip and beat the natives? We cannot prevent him from skinning them by usury; but beating them, no [we cannot allow]. At the time of his expulsion, he was irregularly working as a mason for Eritreans. He molested local women, was a habitual alcohol abuser, and borrowed money from villagers without returning it. One could infer that abusive behavior was a characteristic of only the lowest stratum of Italian settlers.
But this was not the case. Much evidence, in fact, suggests that even middle-class settlers considered abusing the colonized a normal aspect of colonial life. Also quite revealing is a comment by a certain A. Signorini,64 chief engineer of the railroad.
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- Rosa Brava (Portuguese Edition)?
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The two lived in the same railway facilities, and Corti was trying to force the Eritrean to move out in order to get his room. Different Italians had different ideas about how to behave with the colonized. Violence against the colonized was limited. Nevertheless, mistreatment of the colonized was a component of everyday life, as in any other colony.
This is a truism, but it is worth remarking to counter the persisting myth of the benign nature of Italian colonialism. The level of crim- racial hierarchies in colonial eritrea 95 inality in general was very low, and violent crimes, in particular, were rare. Crimes that involved interaction between Italians and Eritrean were usually one of two types: Violent crimes by Eritreans against Italians were almost nonexistent.
Thefts committed by Eritreans were a consequence of poverty. Crimes committed by Italians against Eritreans, by contrast, were the consequence of racial arrogance. An Italian had raped an underage virgin girl, and other Italians had killed two Eritreans. In one such case an Italian, Dante B. It was not simply violence such as that present in any other society, but it was colonial violence.
The repressive action carried out by colonial authorities against such violence also had a special rationale that set it apart from the usual governmental function of ensuring public order. While in the metropole, ruling elites could conceive of their actions as the honoring of a social contract; in the colony, they imagined their role as that of civilizers who take paternal care of savages.
Most colonial court archives have apparently been lost, other colonial series are badly incomplete, and— even more importantly—many sources still need to be explored. It seems that colonial authorities often pressured Eritreans in order to make them withdraw their lawsuits against Italians. Two reports by Governor Giovanni Cerrina Feroni provide us with some disturbing clues about how colonial judges handled the cases that ended up in court.
The case concerns an Italian who was found guilty of attempted murder of an Eritrean but was set free. It is worth following this lengthy story in some detail, because it is quite revealing of many aspects of colonial life. Zelinotti suspected Abdalla of having a relationship with the Eritrean woman with whom he lived. Zelinotti, therefore, assaulted and battered Abdalla before having Abdalla arrested, adding insult to injury.
Following his release, Riccardi kept Abdalla secluded at home. But once he brought Abdalla with him on a trip. A few days earlier, the governor further explained, the same court had condemned an Eritrean guilty of assault and battery against an Italian soldier to thirteen years of prison. Of course, Martini claimed that this was not the case It does not require much imagination, however, to understand what generated such belief.
As we have already seen, before the Italo-Ethiopian war the Italian community was numerically small. It was also economically weak. A good percentage of the Italians were on the state payroll, either as military personnel or as public employees. Only a few concessionaires had been able to invest some capital in the colony, but their economic success depended to a good extent on favorable import-export tariffs and on massive state investment in infrastructure.
And they were by no means able to lobby in the metropolitan Parliament, or to pressure the colonial government as much as the British or French settlers did. Confronting such a weak settler community were governors with a strong sense of their role who were convinced that they possessed a better understanding than both the settlers and the central government in Rome.
Italy had an administrative tradition of bureaucratic centralism. The historian Nicola Labanca Within the colony, however, in accordance with Italian bu- 98 giulia barrera reaucratic tradition, the government established a centralized and hierarchical model of administration.
At the same time, colonial rulers seemed to consider the checks and balances that regulated state authority in Italy as an unnecessary burden in the colony. The outcome was a colonial state that provided its own citizens with few guarantees. For example, departing from metropolitan norms, the colonial judiciary law dictated that ordinary judges did not have competence over the controversies between the colonial administration and Italian citizens. In such controversies, the judge was the governor himself, who therefore was at the same time judge and judged. The codes were duly approved, but they were never formally enforced.
Salvago Raggi, in fact, recurred to a captious procedural devise in order to postpone sine die the enforcement of the new codes. And this was precisely what the colonial government wanted. This line of action, modeled after the British system, was an important departure from the Italian judicial tradition. Last but not least, one should consider that unlike what generally happened in settler colonies, Italian settlers did not enjoy any form of political representation.
In colonial Africa, strong settler communities were able to push for rules that allowed for harsh exploitation of the colonized. The analysis of the most important public confrontation between the governor and the settlers that occurred in colonial Eritrea will help clarify my point.
In , more than eighty settlers staged a protest against Governor Salvago Raggi, accusing him of favoring the Eritreans over the Italians. In order to do some public works, the government had expropriated hectares from some Eritrean villagers and had partially compensated them with 40 hectares taken from Italian settlers. The settlers had received monetary compensation in return. Salvago Raggi argued that the real causes for the protest lay elsewhere. Several colonists had personal grievances against the government because the government had not yielded to their illegitimate claims.
One of the colonists who signed [the petition against the governor] one day talking to me expressed his surprise because the government had not enslaved the native population. If one wants to work, one goes to America. There were, however, also other reasons behind the protest against the governor. According to Salvago Raggi, the most active organizers of the protest had been the Italian lawyers residing in the colony.
According to the governor, Italian lawyers used to cynically exploit Eritreans, extracting from them extravagant fees. Lawyers had also allegedly encouraged Eritrean litigation out of personal interest. Some Italians agreed with the governor in his critique of the lawyers. Others, however, held a totally different opinion and accused the governor of administrative despotism. In a long memoir addressed to the ministry, Conte also stigmatized the reform of the Eritrean judiciary carried out by Salvago Raggi.
In order to simplify the system and cut expenses, the reform had abolished the local court of appeal, diminished the number of Italian judges, and granted wide judiciary power to the commissari. The state attorney thundered: In order to justify this norm, they will certainly say that one has to avoid a scandal in front of the natives. They will talk also about the need of preserving governmental prestige. Immediately tried in Eritrea, Bruna was convicted. But in , the Court of Appeal of Rome reversed the verdict and acquitted him.
In particular, the main witness against Bruna had been a certain Luigi Ernesto Beltramo, who had held a grudge against Bruna because the residente had refused to grant him some contracts for supplies to the colonial administration. To be sure, the Bruna case was exceptional for the quality of cross-accusations between the resident and the settlers. And it seems that under the governorship of Salvago Raggi the relations between colonial administration and settlers were particularly strained.
One should remember that in , Salvago Raggi issued the land law that severely lim- racial hierarchies in colonial eritrea ited the granting of concessions in the highlands. The clash between the colonial government and the settlers thus erupted at a crucial moment in Eritrean colonial history. The echoes of their protest progressively faded, and the governor was able to continue pursuing his policy. This chapter is a contribution to this project. The popular myth that ordinary Italians in the colonies had nothing but friendly relations with the Africans has proved to be without foundation.
As in other colonies, there were settlers who went by the rules set by the colonial government, and others who interpreted the colonial relation as a license to abuse the colonized. At the same time, the colonial state worked to make sure that the colonized were systematically subordinated to the colonizers. As a consequence, the political economy of Italian colonial domination assumed particular characteristics, which eased tensions between colonizers and colonized.
Paradoxically, because of the experience of Adwa, Italian settlers seem also to have had less of a siege mentality compared to other settlers. Adwa put an end, as well, to any project of large-scale Italian migration to Eritrea. Interview with author, Rome, Nov. Many people I interviewed in Eritrea in adopted such a periodization. See also Taddia At the time, Italians in Eritrea numbered 4,; the percentage of party members in the colony was thus even higher than in Italy.
If one looks at colonial policies from the metropolitan point of view, as Labanca does in this volume, the periodization should be different, as he points out. The bibliography is too extensive to be listed here. For a good overview of the recent literature on Italian colonialism, the reader is referred to Labanca An essential bibliography on fascist racial policy in the colonies would include Pankhurst , Bernardini , Goglia , Mignemi , Centro Furio Iesi , and Labanca On colonial concubinage see also Campassi , Barrera , Gabrielli and , and Iyob There are some relevant exceptions to this trend.
I address such issue in depth in my dissertation Barrera Steinberg convincingly points out how such generic explanations do not explain, for example, why Italians on the one hand saved Jews in Croatia in , and on the other hand sent them to extermination camps in , under the Repubblica Sociale Italiana. In the Italian government took over Assab; in it occupied Massawa and started heading inland. On January 1, , the Italian government formally established the colony, naming it Eritrea.
But the Ordinamento della Colonia Eritrea, the law of May 24, , no. Only the decrees issued after remained valid. Bartolommei-Gioli and Checchi Concessions to Italians amounted to 6, hectares Taddia For a recent compelling discussion on the issue, see Tronvoll In , state land in the highlands amounted to 29, hectares; two-thirds of the state land was in Shimezana. One should think that the concessions to Italians 6, hectares were a fraction of state land 29, ; but, apparently, to a good extent they were not. At the time, in fact, Italians for the most part held concessions on land whose expropriation decree had been revoked.
The legal status of such land was thus very confused. One should also consider, however, that state land was often let out for cultivation to Eritrean peasants. Finally, one should consider that state land included rivers, roads, and other areas for public use Bartolommei-Gioli and Checchi In , land alienated to Italian settlers in Hamasien amounted to 6, hectares Bartolommei-Gioli and Checchi For example, in the population of Hamasien refused to enroll in the colonial reserve battalions.
Since the turn of the century, fear of Eritrean rebellion in case of large-scale land alienation is constantly evoked in Italian writings about the valorization of the colony. The land law R. The land law of Feb. In , land alienated to Italians amounted to 6, hectares; it increased to 6, hectares in It progressively decreased in the following years, reaching 5, in , and 4, in Taddia In the period —28, the number of ascari ranged from about six thousand to about nine thousand and constituted from 5. As yet we have data about Eritrean wageworkers only from the s on. In the previous decades their number was certainly smaller Taddia In , per capita animal herds were apparently the highest in the century.
Le malattie dei lavoratori, Traduzione di F. Redondo, Mi- mazini [sic! Hildyard at York Wi th the Method of avoiding Morbis artificum diatriba " pelo Dr. By Freick Hofl'man 1, D. Physician to he present balho e Emprego 1 Fundacentro, Sao Paolo Translated and Enlarged, with an Appendix, by R. Author of the Medica Dietionary. Kouchner, Notice biographique du docteur A. Om Arbetares Sjunkdomar, traduzione di B. Gerhards- dotto dal latino dall'Abate Chiari da Pisa, Edizione riveduta sull'originale, per son.
Diseases of workers, Traslated From the latin te: Cui- la maladie muqueuse, par Roederer et Wagler. Parerti, a cura di dal latino con note e aggiunte di Antonio Francesco Conte di Fourcroy. Cosmacini, Edizioni Teknas, Roma Die krankheiten der handwerker, Aus dam Lateinischen uber- nezia Le malattie dei lavoratori, Traduzione di I.
Le malattie degli artefici, traduzione dal Francese di G. Le- mano e F. Carnevale, Libreria Chiari, Firenze U. He was cites Ramazzini many rinies. Finally, he was use of statistics, he demonstrated beyond caviI used during the fascist period to affirm ltalian that factory workers lived shorter lives than agri- supremacy with respect to rhe birth and pater- cultural laborers Luigi Devoto was sis, Thackrah concludes: Today, times bave changed. The Italian tno- don in the manufacturing period. The Hellenist Wil- gland. Bernardino Ramazzini, Biography and bihliography.
Eur f Oncology ; 4: In the words of his loyal supporter, Devoto: Farringion B, I-Iead and hand in ancient Greece. Some hear its deep murmur, but cannot define it. These human 4, Panseri G. La nascita della polizia medica: In , the Plan for cities — sponsored by the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport — began. In following March the document Methods and Contents on the Priorities in Terms of Urban Agenda was adopted; it identifies the aim to draw a national policy of ordinary character for cities.
But, if the new season looked very promising, the first concrete results proved to be quite unsatisfying. There is, on the one hand, the stalling of CIPE and, on the other hand, the assumption — in the Regional Operational Plans-POR — of a not particularly innovative logic of distribution of resources. In addition, initiatives such as the Plan for cities struggle to find continuity. What in essence is taking shape is an apparent interaction with the European framework, which however does not clearly show the direction where our Country wants to go.
In Italy, what are the issues, new or past, that a new cycle of urban policies should address? How are our towns and urbanized areas changing? How can the city regain a leading role in the socio-economic context? Which ways, tools, policies can give substance to that role? The Atelier was divided into four sessions, each corresponding to families of issues and points of view, which are complementary the ones to the others. What are the specificities of the urban question in our Country; what different contexts and situations make up the Italian urban structure territorial dynamics and perspectives.
During the XXI century, despite the differences between North and South, the Italian urban structure includes large and small metropolitan areas and metropolitan cities. Urban Agenda is a necessarily sketchy expression for his reference to an operational field whose connotations are difficult to generalize. Going back to reflect on Italian urban phenomenologies, to wonder about their forms, relationships and hierarchies, inevitably leads to recognize. Whether and how, in the national programmes and territories, it is possible to identify new design topics and fields for urban policies urban project.
If we shift our attention from the territories to the documents, the issues that underpin European strategies seem to poorly reflect on the distance between cities of fact and cities of right. A distance that today the crisis makes profound and significant. We are witnessing the explosion and the radicalization of some "classic" territorial and planning issues: Of this fragmentation and individualization of processes and practices, values and rights, only a limited trace can be found in the EU and national policies.
In fact they still appear based on a culture of protocol, on regulatory frameworks marked by instances of generalization, on the use of issues-slogans perpetuating an uncritical proposal of functionalist approaches to the government of the city. Whether and how the operational fields defined by the national programmes and the new institutional layout give an answer to the need to govern the specific processes characterizing territorial situations programmes and policies. What we are witnessing essentially seems to be a greatly reductive translation of the place-based approach.
While from the territories some innovative proposals to govern a different growth emerge, the implementation of funding channels PON Metro, National Strategy and POR for Inland Areas and Medium-sized Cities tends to propose standardized procedures, which force territorial specificities within classifications based on hierarchic and economic criteria. Even more problematic issues refer to the relationship between institutional organization, instruments and processes for building policies.
Strong appears to be the discrepancy between urban phenomena and the capacity of the institutional reform introduced by the "Delrio Law " to outline new fields of effectiveness for the public action. Whether we talk about the design of Metropolitan Cities, or the inputs given by inter-municipal associationism, not only the new administrative perimeters seem to abdicate the effort to interpret current urban forms, but also the ways to govern wide areas risk to propose an uncritical revival of the urban planning tools formerly drawn by the Provinces.
Whether and to what extent European inputs are able to activate real paths of innovation within ordinary administrative practice public action and governance. During the crisis, going back to reflect on the ways of everyday public action and not just on the outcomes of individual projects is a further issue proposed to the Atelier. The question is whether and how the implementation of an Urban Agenda - even through extraordinary actions and funds - can produce real learning processes in ordinary public practice.
Given the common demand for the construction of truly integrated policies, the contributions have specifically focused on the critical examination of several possible forms of governance: A model, the latter, which appears to be better able to reinterpret the relationships between bottom-up and top-down perspectives. If integration is a possible outcome of collective action, the task of the public sector should in fact be to contribute to its design, through the construction of the framework useful to identify, enable and involve many other subjects of innovation, thus orienting urban policies towards a renewed operativeness and ensuring the real achievement of expected results.
It is to promote these new practices that the funds mobilized by the Urban Agenda should primarily serve. Path dependancy o innovazioni radicali? Bello, Agim Kercuku Territori nella crisi. La privatizzazione del patrimonio INA-casa in Piemonte. Qualche considerazione su progettazione integrata e Agenda urbana nel nostro paese.
Elisabetta Capelli Obiettivi europei, questioni locali: Ianira Vassallo Il quartiere Mirafiori sud a Torino: Il caso di Roma in prospettiva comparativa. Il Codice ha sostituito gran parte della pregressa normativa relativa al governo del sistema dei beni culturali e abroga la precedente fonte legislativa costituita dal Testo Unico delle disposizioni legislative in materia di beni culturali e ambientali d. Lo strumento tecnico previsto per questa esternalizzazione consisteva nella concessione di uno specifico servizio, di durata quadriennale4. Campania, Calabria, Puglia e Sicilia.
Larga parte delle risorse destinate dalle imprese al settore culturale derivano invece dai contratti di sponsorizzazione che svolgono un ruolo significativo, rendendo possibili interventi di recupero e valorizzazione dei quali il settore pubblico non sempre potrebbe farsi carico. Rendere attrattivi i siti culturali che si offrono alla visita dei turisti diventa uno degli obiettivi e, in questo senso, i servizi aggiuntivi svolgono un ruolo molto importante9, ma un ulteriore obiettivo deve diventare quello di offrire al turista la conoscenza di un intero territorio e di tutti i suoi valori costitutivi culturali, etno-antropologici, paesaggistici, enogastronomici ecc.
Alla Campania sono destinati 43,1 milioni di euro; alla Calabria ne sono destinati 26,8 milioni; alla Puglia 31,8 milioni; alla Sicilia 33,7 milioni. Riferimenti bibliografici Cafiero S. Una visione sistemica e integrata, disponibile online: Tagliacarne , Il sistema economico integrato dei beni culturali, disponibile online: Accordo di partenariato versione 9 dicembre La programmazione del nuovo ciclo dei fondi europei Ministro per la Coesione territoriale Carlo Trigilia, disponibile online: Riorganizzazione dell'azione dei comuni, nuove geografie della pianificazione e territori di mezzo Fulvio Adobati.
Abstract I provvedimenti normativi noti come Spending Review d. Il presente lavoro propone una survey delle ricadute dei provvedimenti con mappatura di tre regioni ad elevata frammentazione spaziale amministrativa: Toscana, Emilia Romagna, Puglia. La formulazione sintetica comprende tuttavia: Tuttavia, secondo la Corte dei Conti , p. I piani regolatori dovranno essere articolati e adottati?
La Legge Delrio, n. Tuttavia, va osservato che degli 8. Problemi di efficienza riguardano anche i comuni compresi tra 5. Dunque quello dei governi urbani resta un problema non trattato. Questo principio implicava una minuta frammentazione e parcellizzazione comunale Ferlaino, Molinari, Tabella I Consistenza numerica e popolazione residente dei comuni con obbligo di gestione associata delle funzioni fondamentali comuni GAO nei contesti regionali rappresentati in Figura 2.
Tabella II Consistenza numerica e superficie espressa in km2 dei comuni con obbligo di gestione associata delle funzioni fondamentali comuni GAO nei contesti regionali rappresentati in Figura 2. I comuni con obbligo di gestione associata delle funzioni fondamentali sono quelli con popolazione fino a 5. Emilia Romagna Figura 3 Rete autostradale e principali grandi strutture di vendita nel contesto a elevata frammentazione spaziale-amministrativa della regione Lombardia Il dato geografico sulle grandi strutture di vendita del Geoportale Regionale di Regione Lombardia contempla le strutture autorizzate al 30 giugno Figura 4 Le dodici province lombarde suddivise in ambiti di riferimento per la cooperazione intercomunale.
Le nove zone di decentramento del Comune di Milano rappresentate sono state istituite nel riconfigurando la geografia dei precedenti 20 consigli di zona. Riferimenti bibliografici Adobati F.
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Visioni e politiche del territorio. Per una nuova alleanza tra urbano e rurale, Storicamente-Quaderni del Territorio 2: Corte dei Conti , Audizione sul D. Un istituzione del federalismo, Carocci, Roma. Audizione del 14 gennaio Intorno alla ridefinizione del Titolo V della Costituzione riguardante le autonomie locali, modificato significativamente nel , esiste ampia convergenza delle forze politiche in ragione dei molti casi di conflitto di competenza verificatisi in particolare conflitti Stato-Regione.
PIL, reddito pro-capite, occupazione. Schema 1 La distorsione dello spazio dovuto alla impari presenza di reti di trasporto Fonte: Interessanti considerazioni rispetto la filosofia neoliberista sono nel testo del di D. Harvey Breve storia del neoliberismo, edito dalla Sansoni di Milano. Sanremo News del 7 marzo ove si evidenziano i danni enormi in termini di abbandono, perdita di turismo, etc. Occorre allora innanzitutto introdurre le varie componenti non considerate od esternalizzate.
Quindi considerare gli effetti prodotti dalle politiche elaborate. Oggi vivono in aree urbane circa tre miliardi e mezzo di persone. Il controllo dei modelli insediativi appare questione di notevole spessore e irrisolta: Pianificazione strategica che nasce in ambito aziendale. Pensiero globale - Azione Locale. Non solo per il BES prima citato ma anche nelle classifiche sui luoghi preferiti emergono i centri piccoli o medi.
Quali criteri di valutazione si usano per definire il meglio o peggio29?
Speranze e glorie; Le tre capitali: Torino, Firenze, Roma by Edmondo De Amicis - Free Ebook
Mentre si stanno scrivendo queste righe, si ribadisce che nel nostro Paese continuano i tagli nelle ferrovie. Come evidenziato da Dematteis , p. Fatto conoscere da Busca e Cafiero nel Dura la reazione del Codacons: Continuous settlement criteria are not operational from a spatial development point of view. Functional influence areas of cities usually overlap, and often include rural areas. Esistenza che attualmente sembra affidata solo ad iniziative eccezionali, privati illuminati, come evidenziato dalla Viviani Adda e Dini, , neoeletta Presidente INU, parlando del caso del recupero del borgo di Castefalfi Montaione, FI.
Spunti, riflessioni, indicazioni di pianificazione e progettazione.
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Come evidenzia ancora la Viviani Ma anche per rilanciare la cultura ed il collegato settore del turismo che vada oltre i 4 luoghi principali — Roma, Venezia, Milano e Firenze41 — sono necessarie politiche infrastrutturali territoriali CIPU, In questo contributo della Commissione Interregionale. Riferimenti bibliografici Bianchi P.
Rapporto aprile per D. Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico, Decreto 7 Ottobre , Servizio universale e punti di accesso alla rete. Ministero delle Infrastrutture , Infrastrutture. Nordregio - Nordic Centre for Spatial Development et al. Potentials for polycentric development in Europe, on-line. Ue , Convenzione europea sul paesaggio, Firenze. Ue , Smart City. New funding opportunity for transnational proposals. Da un lato, la coesione configura sia un tema chiave delle politiche europee, sia un costrutto del dibattito accademico.
Assumendo la coesione sociale urbana come nozione problematica Miciukiewicz et al. Sono stati prodotti documenti, risposte ufficiali, report, azioni di policy, da attori istituzionali e policy makers a tutti i livelli di governo. The new cycle of the Cohesion Policy in Tali propositi, in parte apertamente contradditori, hanno prodotto un campo eterogeneo di policy con contenuti non sempre convergenti e coerenti. Il recente dibattito avvenuto alla scala europea configura in sostanza la richiesta di sviluppare agende urbane di livello nazionale.
Ci si muove da quelle che hanno articolato una vera propria agenda urbana strategica a quelle che non hanno prodotto quasi nulla. I tre driver sono i seguenti: In questi territori si dispiegheranno i Programmi operativi regionali. In molti contesti pedemontani la geografia della produzione che avevamo conosciuto deve essere riscritta, sia se osserviamo i centri urbani densi, sia se guardiamo le aree di dispersione e diffusione insediativa degli storici distretti industriali.
Dati Orim, Regione Lombardia, , dati provinciali sull'immigrazione straniera http: Dati Unioncamere, Indagine Excelsior, , dati provinciali, http: Dati Osservatorio Start up, Politecnico di Milano, , http: Le azioni di inclusione sociale nelle altre regioni e il sostegno a servizi avanzati e filiere produttive saranno invece oggetto di specifiche linee di intervento dei POR.
Rapporto annuale, giugno, disponibile su: European Commission , Cities of Tomorrow: Issues paper, Regional Policy Conference, Feb. Eighth progress report on economic, social and territorial cohesion. The regional and urban dimension of the crisis, Bruxelles. European Commission c , Urban development in the EU: Journal of the American Planning Association, no. Problematising Urban Social Cohesion: Where have we been and where are we going? Un caso Elisabetta M. Come altrove, anche a Bellavista si riscontrano interventi volti alla riqualificazione.
E che ora deve far fronte alla caduta di entrambi. Del sono le prime case unifamiliari realizzate vicino alla fabbrica che andranno a comporre Borgo Olivetti. Tra il e il vengono realizzate le prime abitazioni del quartiere di via Castellamonte oggi via Jervis. Complessivamente nel progetto iniziale sono stati previsti alloggi per un totale di vani, oltre alla realizzazione di autorimesse esterne o al piano terra degli edifici a stecca. Le tipologie edilizie presenti sono di diversa natura: La prima fase di costruzione del quartiere si avvale del finanziamento reso disponibile dal secondo settennio del piano Ina-Casa, mentre tra il e il vengono realizzati altri 66 alloggi di cui 12 finanziati direttamente dalla Olivetti e i restanti 54 dalla Gescal.
Gli alloggi progettati e realizzati tra il e il sono , mentre le autorimesse La popolazione residente e il patrimonio esistente Nel quartiere vi sono 1. La popolazione di ceto medio-basso, ancora in locazione, non riesce a far fronte in maniera indipendente ad alcuni eventi come ad esempio la riprogettazione e la rifunzionalizzazione degli spazi interni agli immobili. In questo quartiere, infatti, si osserva una situazione di degrado degli immobili ed una inadeguatezza degli spazi rispetto agli usi: Opera sia sperimentando in modo diretto la realizzazione di nuovi modelli di housing sociale, sia attraverso il sostegno e la promozione di progetti abitativi sviluppati da altri soggetti che operano sul territorio.
Il quartiere ha subito nel tempo uno svuotamento in termini di numero di abitanti. Nel caso specifico di Bellavista i problemi rilevanti sono due e viaggiano parallelamente: Si riscontrano infatti solo interventi puntuali di privati cittadini, di associazioni o di attori appartenenti al cosiddetto terzo settore. Se si considera che la popolazione residente, sovente proprietaria, invecchia progressivamente e vive in edifici e spazi che poco si adattano alle loro nuove esigenze abitative allora sorgono alcune domande.
Come si possono adattare questi edifici e gli spazi collettivi a queste nuove esigenze? Quali relazioni si instaureranno tra le diverse parti interessate residenti, cittadini, istituzioni pubbliche e imprese private? Linee guida per la riqualificazione urbana, Bruno Mondadori editore, Milano. Architettura moderna a Ivrea, Skira, Milano. Che significa essere protetti? Di Biagi a cura di, , La grande ricostruzione. Fiducia e rischio, sicurezza e pericolo, Il Mulino Bologna.
Il paper presenta una ricerca in corso1, sulle implicazioni territoriali della crisi economica in Europa. La crisi economica che si protrae dal , ha inciso profondamente questo territorio: Ma ha anche favorito auto-produzioni di servizi e di pubblico e spinto ad individuare nuove soluzioni a nuovi problemi. Al progetto hanno aderito A. I materiali di questa ricerca, le ipotesi, le esplorazioni condotte da un ampio gruppo di dottorandi di diversa provenienza disciplinare sono sul blog: TP ha indagato le logiche territoriali dei fenomeni di condivisione.
Descrive ogni foglia come diversa dalle altre, nervatura per nervatura, il dritto e il rovescio. Proust come Freud non guarda ai sentimenti, ma ai loro effetti. Li capisce attraverso i segni Deleuze, La ricerca territoriale degli anni 90 ha molto a che fare con il contare gli alberi. In questo modo si esprime il carattere progettuale della ricerca. Sono di seguito elencate alcune delle questioni sulle quali proponiamo di costruire la riflessione. Cosa significa patrimonializzare un bene immaginato e costruito per rispondere ad un diritto?
In secondo luogo questi stessi casi trattano di un processo di normalizzazione dello spazio abitativo. Quindi a uffici studi, direttive, organismi di accreditamento. Due luoghi comuni disciplinari dati ormai per scontati e disinvoltamente dimenticati. Il disfarsi, la stratificazione e la diversa riarticolazione del welfare. Tutti puntano sul disfarsi del welfare e ve ne sono buone ragioni.
Osservato da vicino, tuttavia, lo sgretolarsi del welfare mostra dinamiche non univoche. Entrano con forza in gioco nuove e vecchie retoriche. E ancora, quella in nome di un miglior funzionamento del territorio. Le nuove forme di stratificazione e riarticolazione sono meno chiare: Lo sgretolarsi del supporto industriale. Che cosa chiamiamo supporto? I temi progettuali che questa questione muove riguardano il tipo di risorsa definito dal supporto industriale urbano: Logiche di colonizzazione di territori non urbani. In condizioni molto diverse del territorio europeo si assiste al ritorno di un antico fenomeno: Nelle dure terre della deindustrializzazion olandese, nelle frange agricole che hanno perso o diminuito il loro potenziale produttivo, nelle valli montane oggetto di antichi spopolamenti.
Ambienti degradati territori ambientali di pregio. Val Maira e Val di Susa sono territori riconquistati. Come avviene la colonizzazione? Dove si insediano i nuovi gruppi? Le logiche di ricolonizzazione riconfigurano sempre un significato e un funzionamento di un. Uno spazio dilatato e potente con una vocazione storica, una dimensione generale. Lo spazio pubblico deflagra, ma per esplosione sociale Banchetti, Si incrinano le gerarchie legate al pubblico che muta statuto entro una ricombinazione tra spazio pubblici differenti che si radicalizzano entro tre principali figure: Cosa accade allo spazio pubblico quando si intrecciano in modo inedito queste tre grandi narrazioni?
Come il progetto si misura con lo slittamento dallo spazio protetto, esibito, accessibile e trasparente a una condizione diversa, fatta di condivisione di momenti simbolici, feste, piccole celebrazioni? Gita a Chiasso Balestrini et all. Nei processi di formazione, sulle riviste, nelle ricerche e nelle discussioni. Riferimenti bibliografici Balestrini N. Critica e teoria, Bompiani, Milano. Critica sociale del gusto, Il Mulino, Bologna. Cogato Lanza et all. Provincia di Milano Direzione Pianificazione territoriale generale Email: La localizzazione interessa, tra le altre, alcune aree circa A, che possiede gli oltre Si lavora su due fronti: Le varianti sono due: Per quanto riguarda Rho, viene variato il PRG allora vigente.
Il PGT approvato successivamente, con deliberazione di C. Tra ipotesi di esproprio e nuovi scenari di costituzione di New Co. I contenuti della variante urbanistica sono in sintesi: Atto Integrativo promosso con DGR n. Questa impostazione organizzativa e finanziaria, sulla quale si lavora fino a tutto il mese di marzo , subisce in seguito una profonda inversione di rotta alla vigilia delle elezioni amministrative che hanno rinnovato i governi dei Comuni di Milano e di Rho6. Le elezioni amministrative si sono tenute il 15 e 16 maggio, con turni di ballottaggio il 29 e 30 maggio. A7 che viene quindi costituita il 1 giugno, inizialmente con la sola partecipazione regionale.
Deliberazione Giunta Regionale n. Smart evaluation and planning. Tale processo di valutazione non intende sostituirsi alle procedure valutative per legge obbligatorie ma si pone quale azione conoscitiva istituzionale volontaria di aiuto alla costruzione delle decisioni di programmazione dei processi territoriali di trasformazione e sviluppo. Si tratta di un insieme di indicazioni non prescrittive che costituiscono un set di codici etici finalizzati alla promozione di politiche territoriali di sviluppo che pongano al centro azioni di valorizzazione del territorio e del paesaggio.
Tale forma di gestione cooperativa - ispirata alle esperienze pionieristiche americane e britanniche del Business Improvement District BID - consente di promuovere nei territori della Provincia azioni diversificate di sviluppo e valorizzazione locale. Riferimenti bibliografici Alexander E. Evolution and Prospects, Ashgate, Aldershot. Archibugi, Teoria della pianificazione, Alinea, Firenze, pp.
Research, theories and controversies. Qualche considerazione su progettazione integrata e Agenda urbana nel nostro paese Claudio Calvaresi. Il processo di costruzione della nuova politica di coesione ha visto delle interessanti innovazioni di metodo. Luci e ombre riguardano i due programmi nazionali fondamentali che riguardano lo sviluppi territoriale: Premessa Questo paper si occupa di due aspetti: Sul primo aspetto, prova ad avanzare qualche considerazione sul tema della progettazione integrata.
Questa posizione ha indubbiamente un vantaggio: Cosa abbiamo di sbagliato? Il paper suggerisce allora di fare un tentativo, provando ad affrontare alcuni limiti di metodo che la stagione della progettazione integrata in Italia ha messo in evidenza. Per quanto riguarda la dimensione sostantiva, il paper, tenendo conto delle condizioni di programmazione, identifica questioni di policy su cui lavorare. Per fare questo, il paper prova a rispondere alla seguente domanda: Sono troppi e troppo diffusi i suoi fallimenti, nelle politiche di rigenerazione urbana come in quelle per la promozione dello sviluppo locale intraprese negli ultimi, per far finta di niente e continuare a sostenere che si tratta di un approccio fertile.
Inoltre, occorre considerare che il dibattito italiano va nella opposta direzione rispetto a quello europeo: Un approccio integrato che funziona dovrebbe garantire connessioni sostantive tra questioni diverse, attivare ambiti di interazione multipli nei processi di sviluppo locale, e sinergie tra questioni, tempi, esiti e risorse. Oggi, abbiamo una nuova chance: Alcuni punti di attenzione per una agenda urbana italiana 1. Lo stesso impulso che pure era stato dato al CIPU solo qualche mese fa sembra essersi smarrito.
Si sta muovendo qualcosa sul fronte della costituzione di un centro di competenza nazionale sul tema delle politiche urbane, che potrebbe diventare un interlocutore interessante sul fronte della costruzione di quadri conoscitivi e di disseminazione. Le linee di indirizzo strategico degli OT appaiono largamente condivisibili: Come intendono trattarne gli aspetti negativi e invertire la rotta?
Le lezioni apprese in che modo influenzano il nuovo ciclo? Nel Pon Metro non vi sono indicazioni che invitino a costruire connessioni tra azioni appartenenti a diversi Obiettivi Tematici. Discorso diverso per la strategia Aree Interne, che invece ai dispositivi di management del processo piattaforma di scambio tra soggetti, federazione dei progetti dedica attenzione e affida molte delle sue speranze di successo.
Gestori e beneficiari avrebbero a disposizione dei dispositivi che invitano a mettere a fuoco gli spazi, prima che i settori di policy. Presentava due elementi importanti, con riferimento alle questioni sollevate da questo paper: Su questo conviene soffermarsi: Riferimenti bibliografici Barca F. Archivio di studi urbani e regionali, no. Un ciclo politico al tramonto.
Obiettivi europei, questioni locali: Nondimeno, gli esiti che tale assimilazione programmatica ha generato sul piano concreto degli interventi appaiono spesso ancora incerti. Le politiche di social housing in Italia sono emblematiche in questo senso: La matrice europea del discorso sul social housing: La declinazione locale delle politiche: Riferimenti bibiografici Bifulco L. Temi e prospettive emergenti, Carocci Editore, Roma.
Spunti dal e per il territorio lombardo, Guerini e Associati, Milano. Critical Perspectives on governance and power, Routledge, London. Le politiche del territorio sono inevitabilmente legate a questo tipo di sviluppo locale, ove produzione e welfare sono radicalmente connesse e generano azioni di governance da sempre condivise. La crisi economica, qui particolarmente incisiva, mostra la profonda trasformazione di questa organizzazione e il venir meno di questo legame tra produzione e servizi.
I materiali di questa ricerca, le ipotesi, le esplorazioni e i primi risultati sono sul blog: Disfarsi La lunga tradizione di studi su Biella individua delle origini antiche per questo distretto, finanche medievali Maitte, La stretta relazione tra industria e welfare, come detto, si inaugura con le grandi infrastrutture costruite dagli industriali nel primo Novecento. Ma anche scuole, asili, istituti di formazione. E ancora alberghi, stazioni sciistiche, parchi, piscine, ospedali, cimiteri. Possiamo facilmente immaginare un aumento costante di case sfitte, di territori abbandonati, di radicale dismissione degli spazi.
La dismissione dei luoghi del lavoro o la loro drastica minorazione ha causato anche un ingente problema sociale: I due settori trainanti del Biellese sono da sempre quello tessile e quello edile. Riproducendo dinamiche rilevabili lungo tutto il territorio italiano Censis, , anche nel biellese sono essenzialmente le famiglie a farsi carico dei servizi che sono venuti meno.
Si assiste a un progressivo e costante dilapidamento dei patrimoni familiari. Si tratta di iniziative molto potenziate negli ultimi anni, a volte molto circoscritte e localizzate, altre volte costituenti veri e proprie reti territoriali. Si tratta di un piano quinquennale, guidato dalla Caritas, che comprende il Comune, il Cissabo Consorzio dei Servizi Socio-Assistenziali del Biellese Orientale , il Centro servizi Volontariato, alcuni enti privati.
Da qui partono molto spesso iniziative importanti e progetti di ordine culturale e sociale di rilievo per il territorio comunale. Anche qui, tranne nel caso del piccolo comune di Veglio, si tratta di soggetti non istituzionali. Il successo di queste iniziative non pare essere per ora decisivo.