Quality of life 2024, why Reggio Calabria is the worst province in Italy
The capital is penalised above all by hydrogeological risk, emigration and lack of work. The chance of the NRP: 55 projects underway
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3' min read
3' min read
"When distraught, Reggio Calabria reacts. And if something shakes it, the city rebels. It is its history that tells it, not just the geological one'. Antonella Cuzzocrea is a land activist. In the sense that for 50 years, with her publishing house Città del Sole, she has been delving into the city's thousand-year history, publishing investigations, non-fiction and fiction.
'The reconstruction after the 1908 earthquake, the protest uprisings of the 1970s, the spring of mayor Italo Falcomatà, the dissolution of the municipality due to mafia infiltration and the receivership. The collapse that paralysed activities and the debt that was paid off'.
The publishing house, which animates the cultural life of Reggio Calabria within a small space in the ancient Giudecca quarter - the very place where, in 1475, the printer Avrhaham ben Garton printed the first Hebrew edition of the Bible - lines up some salient passages of the city's history.
The ups and downs, as when, from 1993 to 2001, Italo Falcomatà was mayor: appreciated, loved and mourned not only because he succeeded in stopping squatting, giving a strong imprint of modernity, and unblocking the funds of the 'Reggio Decree' (8 May 1989), but for his attitude of listening, his closeness to his community. Today the first citizen is his son Giuseppe, in his second term, but his path is more complex and perhaps just as bumpy. Perhaps because political transition within a family is never a foregone conclusion. Certainly because of what happened between the father's government and the son's, the turbulent presidencies of Giuseppe Scopelliti and Demetrio Arena, and certainly because of a completely changed local and global context.
"We go up and down, up and down,' Antonella Cuzzocrea continues. 'On the Strait we have the most beautiful light in the world but children scattered all over Europe. They leave and everything ages faster here, even if the city tries to regenerate and attract tourists. Today from Minniti Airport we also go to and from the major European capitals. Spontaneous groups of citizens are reclaiming urban spaces. We didn't know it, but after cleaning up stairs and 'miradors', from Via Marina towards the upper city, even replacing plants and railings, we discovered that Reggio Calabria is as beautiful as Lisbon'.
