The Industrial Geography of Italy

Russell King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Edition: 1
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Print ISBN:
  9781138854437
  9781138854406
• Subtopic: Geography
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317521105
• Index: Geography

At the time this book was originally published in 1985 Italy was one of Europe's leading industrial nations. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of Italian industry during the 1980s. It introduces Italy's physical and human resources and outlines the historical development of the industry. It then examines the major sectors of Italian industry and then describes the different regions of the country and the striking differences between them are explored and discussed.

PART ONE

BACKGROUND TO INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN ITALY

1 RESOURCES, NATURAL AND HUMAN

Introduction

It is still the fashion for most regionally-focused geography textbooks to start with a more or less detailed account of physical geography. This approach is eschewed here. Only the briefest topographical generalisations are made, sufficient to give the reader unfamiliar with Italy some idea of its broad physical structure. The main emphasis of this introductory chapter is on examining resources — physical, cultural, demographic — which have a direct bearing on industrial development.

In order to become familiar with commonly-used Italian regional names, we start by looking at Italy’s administrative geography. Italy is now divided into 20 regions, 95 provinces and more than 8,000 communes. Numbers of these administrative units have tended to increase over time; in 1870, for instance, there were 73 provinces. Isernia in Molise and Oristano in Sardinia are the most recently created provinces.

The 20 regions are shown on Figure 1.1 and listed in Table 1.1 with their basic geographic and demographic characteristics. They bear some resemblance to the Roman divisions of Italy and are roughly comparable in size and significance to French and Spanish regional units like Brittany and Andalusia, except that Italian regions have evolved considerable administrative autonomy since the end of the war and especially since 1970. Five of the regions have special powers. These are either islands (Sicily, Sardinia) or frontier regions (Val d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia Giulia) possessing special cultural or linguistic characteristics.

At the next level are the 95 provinces. These are more significant as geographical areas than as units of local government. Typically each province consists of a major town or city, from which the province takes its name, and a number of villages and smaller towns which make up the communes of the province. The commune is the basic unit of local government. Provinces are important in the study of the human and industrial geography of Italy because of the wealth of statistical data published by the government agency ISTAT at this level.

At a more macro scale, common usage divides Italy into a number of sectional arrangements. A simple North/South dichotomy is common in questions regarding the Mezzogiorno. ISTAT employs a threefold division into North, Centre and South, whilst the Constitution further divides the South into mainland and islands. Some rationale for these macro-divisions undoubtedly exists.¹ The North is given unity by the focal function of the great Po Plain, encircled by the sweep of the Alps and the northern Apennine slopes. The high productivity levels of both agriculture and industry furnish its inhabitants with a high standard of living. Close commercial and cultural links with Central and Western Europe enhance the ‘northern’ consciousness of its peoples. With the exception of the Ligurian coastal strip, the North possesses an un-Mediterranean climate with marked continentality, summer rainfall maxima and of course heavy snowfall on the Alps and high Apennines. The Centre, comprising Marche, Tuscany, Umbria and Latium, is essentially Mediterranean and still largely rural. Compared to the North, there is a marked absence of industrial advantages and traditions. Finally, the South, given a certain physical unity by climate, soils and geology, constitutes a special region because of its relative backwardness, the legacy of centuries of neglect. Campania, Abruzzi, Molise, Apulia, Basilicata and Calabria make up the mainland South, although Abruzzi is locationally and economically transitional with the central region. Sicily and Sardinia, as islands, are very much separate regional entities, having as little in common with each other as they do with the mainland.

Table 1.1: Italian Regions: Population, Area and Density

Region	Population, 1983 (’000)	Area (sq.km)	Density (persons per km^2)
Piedmont	4,426	25,400	174
Val d’Aosta	114	3,260	35
Lombardy	8,856	23,850	371
Trentino-Alto Adige	864	13,610	64
Veneto	4,312	18,360	235
Friuli-Venezia Giulia	1,220	7,850	155
Liguria	1,793	5,420	331
Emilia-Romagna	3,929	22,120	178
Tuscany	3,563	22,990	155
Umbria	806	8,460	95
Marche	1,409	9,690	145
Latium	5,074	17,200	295
Abruzzi	1,232	10,790	114
Molise	326	4,440	73
Campania	5,475	13,600	403
Apulia	3,931	19,350	203
Basil icata	604	9,990	61
Calabria	2,060	15,080	137
Sicily	4,987	25,710	194
Sardinia	1,598	24,090	66
Italy	56,577	301,260	188

Source: Compendio Statistico Italiano 1981, Rome: ISTAT (1982), p.6; Bollettino Mensile di Statistica, July 1984, Rome: ISTAT (1984), p.166

Figure 1.1: Italy: Regional Boundaries and Main Towns

Natural Resource Framework

According to ISTAT the Italian territory is 38.7 per cent mountains, 39.7 per cent hills and only 21.6 per cent plains, figures which compare unfavourably with all other EEC countries except Greece. Although this mountain-hill-plain division is morphological rather than altitudinal — there are, for example, areas of ‘low mountain’ in south-west Sardinia and zones of ‘high hills’ in Tuscany and central Sicily — generally speaking the mountain category comprises land over 1,000 m and the plains include most land below 300 m. Figure 1.2 shows the main relief and drainage features.

Italy to a large extent owes its present form to the mountain-building of the Miocene period which led to the shaping of the Alps and Apennines more or less as they are today, modified subsequently by glaciation. With the Alps dominating the northern borderlands and providing the cavea for the theatre of the Po Plain, the main relief structure of the peninsula is the Apennines which wind uniformly south, conditioning climate, agriculture, communications and historical events.

Crystalline rocks dominate the Western Alps and the higher parts of the Central and Eastern Alps. Small glaciers survive in places and there are considerable snow-fields. Jagged, frost-shattered pinnacles stand out, as at Monte Viso and Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc). Flat-bottomed, U-shaped valleys seam the Alpine massif; minor valleys ‘hang’. Limestone is the dominant rock in the southern part of the Alps east of the Ticino River. In the Dolomites tower-like blocks of limestone with flat tops give silhouettes rather different from those of the pointed crystalline Alps.

Many of the higher parts of the Apennines are also composed of limestones; in the Apuanian Alps of Tuscany and in the Gran Sasso of Abruzzi alpine landforms result through glaciation. Sandstone is widespread in the northern Apennines where the topography is somewhat more rounded. Particularly on the eastern flanks, the Apennines are bordered by a belt of clays and marls. The clays are much subject to gulleying and areas of badlands called calanchi exist, particularly in Basilicata. Where clays are overlain or interleaved with sandstone or limestone, landslips are frequent occurrences. The limestone-sandstone-clay sequence reappears in Sicily. In Sardinia and Calabria, by contrast, crystalline landscapes recur but, unaffected by glaciation, the relief is lower and more rounded than in the Alps. Volcanic landscapes naturally call to mind celebrated Etna and Vesuvius, but also exist elsewhere, in Latium and Sardinia.

Figure 1.2: Main Relief and Drainage Features

Most plains in Italy are alluvial. A partial exception is the Po Plain whose morainic hills and pebbly gravels owe much to the work of glaciation. In the Apulian Tavoliere the alluvial veneer is a rather thin covering for the Quaternary sea-bed. A distinction can be drawn between the great triangular Po Plain of the North and the smaller coastal plains of the peninsula and islands. In the Po Plain man’s mastery of hydraulic technology, key to the development of the Italian plains, explains a rapid and early economic development culminating in considerable nineteenth century industrial growth. In the peninsula, particularly towards the South, and in the islands, the coastal flatlands, with their violent silt-laden floods, their malaria and their emptiness, have proved a difficult environment to exploit. Areas like the Sele and Garigliano Plains in Campania, the Metapontino of Basilicata, the pocket-plains of Calabria, the Plain of Catania and the Sardinian Campidano have been forsaken since the close of the classical era, yielding only recently, in the 1930s or the 1950s, to new techniques of reclamation, drainage and irrigation.

The main climatic influences are Italy’s latitudinal position, the strong maritime influences of the Mediterranean Sea (no part of the peninsula is more then 80 km from the sea), and the presence of mountain areas, particularly their relation to air mass movements. Yet the classic Mediterranean climate, with its long, hot droughty summer and its mild, rainy winter, does not occur widely in Italy, being confined to the islands and the lower third of the peninsula. Hardly any rain falls in the summer in the South, but north of Rome summer rainfall increases and in the Po Plain summer precipitation exceeds winter. The mountain-girt interior location of the North Italian Plain gives it a quasi-continental climate. Milanese summers are as hot as at Bari in the South, but winter temperatures equate to those of Alsace far to the north. Temperature inversions in the Po Valley give Turin and Milan short severe winters with January means of 0°C and 1°C respectively. Milan can experience 60 days of frost per year and as many days of fog. With increasing industrial pollution of the atmosphere the city’s smogs are becoming notorious.

Mean annual rainfall decreases southwards, but altitude is a powerful local control. Alpine regions may receive 3,000 mm and high Apennine locations over 2,000 mm. The driest places are the southern coasts of Apulia, Sicily and Sardinia where only 300–400 mm are recorded, making dry-farming a hazardous undertaking. The more even seasonal distribution of precipitation in the North permits the growth of a wide variety of crops, supports natural meadows and generally sustains a healthy agricultural regime which has acted as a solid plank for industrial development since at least the early nineteenth century. By contrast the South’s chronic lack of moisture during the growing season limits crop variety and poses a continual threat to yields. The impetus to industrial development through a prosperous agriculture has therefore been missing in this part of Italy.

Whilst it is true that it is possible to find within Italy virtually every European land use existing from Scotland to Turkey, the legend of Italy as the garden of Europe is largely mythical. The fertile, garden-like areas — around Florence and Naples, behind Palermo and on the lower slopes of Etna for example — are in truth the result of centuries of painstaking modification of the natural environment: laborious cutting of terraces, meticulous control of water, expert management of soil and crops. Only one-quarter of the land deemed suited to farming is level or gently sloping; the rest is hill or mountain.

The industrial significance of these geological and precipitation features lies primarily in river regimes. The most striking feature is the contrast between the rivers originating in the Alps which have a considerable perennial flow often based on impermeable geological structures, and those originating south of the Po which have irregular flows developed on porous rocks. Many rivers in the peninsula and the islands dry up completely for a part of the year; their economic potential, for irrigation, navigation and power generation, is extremely limited.

But we should be careful in ascribing neo-deterministically the agricultural and industrial backwardness of the South solely to physical factors. No one can deny that the South is short of level land or that the severity of the summer drought generally increases as one proceeds down the peninsula. But this is not the whole story. There have been historical periods — under the Greeks and the Arabs, for instance — when the South made use of its environmental resources so successfully that an advanced civilisation and economy flourished. Capua and Pompeii, for example, were leading centres of commerce and industry in their day. At other times, man has abused the environment. And this is the key. It is not that development possibilities have been mechanistically held down by physical factors; rather the parameters should be stated in reverse. Much of the problem of the South results from the long-term inefficient use of environmental resources. The erosive phenomena, the poor soils, the scrubby vegetation, the malaria and the desertion have been ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• Part One: Background to Industrial Development in Italy
• Part Two: The Main Sectors of Italian Industry
• Part Three: Regional Patterns of Italian Industry
• Bibliography
• Index