The Sack of Palermo is the popular term for the construction boom from the 1950s through the mid-1980s that led to the destruction of the green belt and villas that gave Palermo, Italy, architectural grace, to make way for characterless and shoddily constructed apartment blocks. In the meantime Palermo's historical centre, severely damaged by Allied bombing raids in 1943, was allowed to crumble. The bombing condemned nearly 150,000 to live in crowded slums, shantytowns, and even caves.