This cannot be comforting news but it did ring a familiar bell. The Italian region closest to us has an unfortunate reputation among most other people – whether Italian or foreign. For a very long time the word Sicily would conjure up ideas of shopping trips and a quick and cheap escape from the socialist regime of monotonous shelving and bulk buying.
Yesterday’s Rai 1 news carried the item that the economic growth of Sicily has surpassed Lombardy. I am not surprised. Having visited Sicily and divested my brain of the unfortunate stereotypes that I still carried from my youth I could not but agree with the idea that this was a promising region that knew where to go next.
Sicily could not be further away from Malta in terms of planned development and growth. Old maladies notwithstanding , the impression you get is of an eager region ready to pounce on the next opportunity that is offered. Add on the measure of Mediterranean beauty and Italian style and you have a formula that could be a winner.
This bit of news is what remains of the little, sad comparisons we can make with the sister island up north (from Repubblica.it):
Esplode fabbrica di fuochi
due morti nel Catanese
A Santa Venerina, sul posto varie squadre di vigili del fuocoDue persone sono morte e un’altra è rimasta ferita nell’esplosione avvenuta in una fabbrica di fuochi d’artificio di Santa Venerina, nei pressi di Catania. La deflagrazione, seguita da un incendio, è avvenuta poco dopo le 9.30. Sul posto numerose squadre dei vigili del fuoco, oltre a polizia e carabinieri.
(10 gennaio 2011)
Some things will never change.
2 replies on “Us and Them”
Haha, don’t forget David Gatt, our very own Toto!
i share sentiment but there seems to be something quite not right in your ‘fact analysis’ department – from my top-of-the-head perception, lombardy is the long-term lion of the italian economy having a population of circa 10m compared to sicily’s what 5m…lombardy’s gdp per capita must be in the euros 30,000 plus bracket despite significant ‘worker communities’ compared to sicily’s euros 20,000 minus per capita…lombardy suffered significant contraction in current economic crises since 2009 because it had significant real muscle to be hit seriously, something that sicily (or malta for that matter) does not have, (hence the perception that the recession did not hit us or sicily as hard)… therefore saying that sicily’s economic growth is higher than that of lombardy given current scenario is not saying much…it is like saying that my personal growth rate of plus 200 euros is higher than ‘an abramovic type of businessperson’ because the latter’s wealth actually contracted during the ‘recession’ from y billions to x billions…this is of course a caricature and is intended to drive home principle. Having said that i do share your perception that the sicilian economy is trying to deal seriously with its potential even if there is still a long way to go…