Newsgroup: italia.reggiocalabria.discussioni
Titolo: Poor, poorer, poorest

anche se non riferito direttamente a reggio, l'articolo e' illuminante
perche' non accade tutti i giorni che un importante settimanale
americano si interessi del sud italia, data anche l'indifferenza del
giornalismo nazionale.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Poor, Poorer, Poorest
Once upon a time, Italy's old Mezzogiorno was Europe's most
impoverished region. It still is-only much more so.
By Barbie Nadeau
Newsweek International
Sept. 26 - Oct. 3, 2005 issue - The ruins of Matera in Italy's southern
region of Basilicata are a grim reminder of how desperate life has been
for the region's poor. Generations of families once lived here in
squalid, windowless caves cut out of the steep ravines, often sleeping
alongside their pigs, chickens and goats. Malaria was rampant and few
babies survived to see their first birthday. Finally, in 1960, a public
outcry across Europe prompted the Italian government to evacuate the
entire impoverished population of 15,000 up the hill to government
housing. Now the area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and many of the
abandoned caves are being transformed into tony wine bars and four-star
hotels for curious tourists. Mel Gibson even filmed a segment of "The
Passion" here-fittingly, the gruesome Crucifixion scene.
Matera and other picturesque southern Italian villages may be enjoying
a relative renaissance, thanks to tourism. And Italy itself has become
Europe's fourth largest economy, with dynamic growth over the past
decades despite recent years of sporadic recession. Yet life in the old
Mezzogiorno remains as tough as it's always been-if not worse.
Instead of catching up with the rest of Italy, the region seems to be
falling farther and farther behind.
According to two studies released last month, southern Italy, if it
were independent, would be the poorest of the EU's 25 members in terms
of per capita national income. Many residents cannot afford adequate
housing and such basic utilities as hot water and central heating.
Infant mortality in the first 28 days of life is 5.7 per -1,000 live
births-four times higher than in the northern provinces and double
the European median. The dropout rate for primary-school
students-through grade eight-is 24 percent, 2.5 times higher than
the rest of Europe. Says Maurizio Bonati of the Mother and Child Health
Laboratory at Mario Negri Institute in Milan, coauthor of one of the
studies: "We're talking about people who cannot buy simple groceries,
who cannot buy milk for their children, who cannot find nourishment
when they are pregnant." The second study, by Giorgio Tamburlini of the
Institute for Child Health Burlo Garofalo in Trieste, found that 17
percent of children and adolescents in southern Italy suffer from
mental-health problems including depression, suicide and eating
disorders like anorexia-all disproportionate side effects of Italy's
enduring north-south income divide.
What's remarkable is how little impact 40 years of government aid and
investment have had. For decades, the richer Italian provinces in the
north have complained-often to the point of demanding
separation-that taxes paid to the government in Rome are siphoned by
the poor south. To be sure, there are some successes: government
investment in agriculture has made Puglia the largest provider of pasta
for Europe. Calabria has become one of Europe's major suppliers of
citrus fruit. In Campania, investment in tourism has transformed the
Amalfi coast into a top tourism destination, while Naples is slowly
being remade into a clean and safe city. Yet the overall picture
remains grim: 7.3 million residents in southern Italy still make less
than 521 euro a month, and half of those live on less than 435 euro a
month, according to ISTAT, Italy's national statistics institute.
"There are hotels in the south that can demand 500 euro a night, and
families live on less than that just a few kilometers away," laments
Francesco Loporfido, who owns the Andrisani Enoteca, tucked inside a
Matera cave.
Part of the problem is how resources have been allocated. In 2000 the
government earmarked $50 billion in EU funds and matching national
funds for Mezzogiorno development through the year 2006, much of which
was meant for health-care reform and infrastructure enhancements. But
under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, more than half those funds have
gone to Campania for urban revitalization in Naples and development
along the already rich Amalfi coast. Recently the government allocated
300 million euro for broadband infrastructure, despite the fact that
only a slender fraction of southern Italians can afford computers. It
has spent millions in studying whether to build a 4.6 billion euro
bridge from Sicily to the mainland. As for social services, reports the
Mother and Child Health Laboratory study: "Not a single program for
maternal and pediatric intervention exists in Italy right now." Many
southern hospitals suffer from shortages of doctors, nurses and medical
supplies. Scores of public buildings have been declared unsafe.
Why hasn't northern Italy's wealth trickled south? The reasons are
many, ranging from the mafia's control of many southern businesses to
the unusually large share (an estimated 30 to 40 percent) of the local
economy that operates in the black-the black market, that is. Money
made on the side, whether by day labor or crime, does not flow into
taxes, which in turn impoverishes municipal governments. More
fundamentally, Italy's economic good times never touched the south.
Prosperous northern businesses invested in plants in their own region;
service industries operate where the money and markets are-in the
north. It has been the same story with foreign investment, except for
the relatively modest amounts of EU aid. All this is compounded by low
health and literary rates. With 24 percent of primary students
abandoning school, unemployment hovers between 30 and 50 percent and
shows little prospect of improving. Perhaps worst, long years of
inequity have all but stifled the will to change. The perception is
that southern Italy will always be as it is, says Bonati. "Especially
in the south, people feel that it's their destiny to be poor."
The prognosis is not good. The latest studies are full of
well-intentioned recommendations for change, from improving local
health services with mobile clinics and tougher regulation to greater
emphasis on prenatal and childhood medical assistance. There's also
brave talk about ways of narrowing the north-south income divide:
measures to force black-market jobs into the mainstream, bolstering tax
revenues and adopting initiatives to ensure that parents keep their
kids in school. None of this is likely to amount to much, however,
without a commitment from Italy's federal government to invest
economically in the south-and offer incentives for northern
businesses to do the same. Without that, the region's chief potential
resource-its low-cost, underemployed labor pool-will remain
untapped. And its people might as well be living in caves.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:1128534890.1...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
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may you translate, please
do it.
people must understand.


http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.msnbc.msn.com%2Fid%2F9378520%2Fsite%2Fnewsweek%2F&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=it&c2coff=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
Non è una traduzione perfetta, ma è rapida e rende l'idea

 people must understand.
la prossima volta non quotare tutto il testo del messaggio precedente,
se non e' necessario.
in sintesi, l'articolo dice che se il mezzogiorno fosse uno stato
indipendente, sarebbe lo stato più misero di tutti i 25 membri
dell'unione europea. uau, non pensavo fossimo combinanti fino a questo
punto. qui facciamo 1 passo avanti e 3 indietro.

 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:1128598698.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...


ah beh.
in pratica gli americani ci stanno dicendo quello che gia' sappiamo.
speriamo che almeno adesso che abbiamo le conferme da autorevoli tabloid
esteri riusciamo a reagire appoggiandoci sull'orgoglio che contraddistingue
la gente del sud in altri argomenti.
certo che i nostri governanti non e' che ci abbiano aiutato piu' di tanto,
mentre il governo continua a spendere in infrattusture al nord(vedi leggi
progetto alta velocita' linee ferroviarie torino_ trieste) ,lavori che si
fanno a tempi record,
tra reggio e catanzaro continuamo a muoverci a scacchi, su un solo binario,
scendiamo dal treno a pellaro prendiamo il pulman fino a melito,
a melito riprendiamo il treeno fino a brancalerone dove riscendiamo e
riprendiamo il pulman e arriviamo a roccella a tempo di record.
ragazzi mandiamo via questa gente dal governo.
e poi facciamo pressioni vere aul futuro governo.
noi del sud non meritiamo tutto quello che continuamo a subire.

"antonio" ha scritto nel messaggio
news:43464dfc$0$29547$4faf...@reader1.news.tin.it...
Ma non ci volevano fare un ponte sullo stretto?
(e per di più da Berlusconi, ....un vero miracolo!)
Ma qualcuno vuol tenersi il bel panorama......
(anche i 2 piloni ex Enel sono brutti ma sono rimasti una
caratteristica e attrattiva del panorama).
Il ponte di Brooklyn *rompe* con il paesaggio
ma finisce spesso in cartoline e filmati.
E poi non è il nostro un ponte sospeso?
forse una striscia d'ombra sconvolge
catastroficamente l'ambiente marino dello Stretto?
Al nord per avere comodità hanno fatto rinunce.
Al sud per non fare rinunce non abbiamo comodità!
Il ponte giustificherebbe un' alta velocità in Calabria
Come si può pensare di spendere tanto
per far guadagnare un'ora o poco più
(la geografia della Calabria
è disgraziata da questo punto di vista) per poi perdere
ore per il traghettamento, se il mare lo permette?
Avuta l' alta velocità si possono pretendere in seguito
velocità adeguate per altri nodi calabresi.
(secondo me non ci dovrebbe essere quest' ultima
relazione di sequenze,  ma penso non sia facile far
accettare idee di scorrimento veloce ferroviario
se locale ed isolato).
Ciao
Matteo