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Messina, From the Earthquake to the Present

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Abstract

Following the 1908 earthquake, the establishment of new channels for financing reconstruction and the creation of special agencies for the financial management of economic flow casted Messina into the hands of small groups of interest that reconfigured the city both socially and physically. In particular, the considerable extension of the post-disaster city is seen as the result of speculative processes encouraged by the financial mechanisms of reconstruction. This chapter, thus, explores the post-disaster processes that led, on the one hand, to the emergence of new forms of spatial segregation and the rise of a new urban underclass, and, on the other hand, to the consolidation of mechanisms that contributed to the rise of a number of families that transmit their power and influence from generation to generation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Heidegger (2008, p. 62), De Martino (2015, p. 85 passim).

  2. 2.

    As anticipated in Chap. 3, the industrial processing of reject lemons was very widespread in Messina, also linked to the production of citrate (Lupo 1987, pp. 84, 93).

  3. 3.

    As Harvey sums up (2010, p. 29): “As more surplus capital went into production during the 1980s, particularly in China, heightened competition between producers started to put downward pressure on prices (as seen in the Wal-Mart phenomenon of ever-lower prices for US consumers). Profits began to fall after 1990 or so in spite of an abundance of low-wage labor. Low wages and low profits are a peculiar combination. As a result, more and more money went into speculation on asset values because that was where the profits were to be had. Why invest in low-profit production when you can borrow in Japan at a zero rate of interest and invest in London at 7 per cent while hedging your bets on a possible deleterious shift in the yen–sterling exchange rate?”.

  4. 4.

    In this text, the uses of world “barrack” and “shack” are subjected to the local semantics. By barracks we mean the technical artifact; that is, a temporary wooden structure provided by the government in the aftermath of the earthquake, aimed at hosting households and individuals. By the term “shack” (or shanty, and similar) we mean the process of permanentization and degradation of the artifact and the social space.

  5. 5.

    For a technical analysis of the master plan, see: Licordari (2017).

  6. 6.

    This torrent divided into two at a certain point, and it had two beds (Giostra and Annunziata).

  7. 7.

    Initially, the areas destined to private housing development were Corso Cavour, Porta Imperiale West, Santa Cecilia South, Primo Settembre North, and La Farina East. As soon as these areas were filled, the space for the bourgeoisie expanded: north of Via Primo Settembre, east of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, north of Torrente Giostra, west of the beltway, and around the most important public buildings (courthouse, city hall, government houses etc.).

  8. 8.

    As soon as the areas were filled, the expansion of this type of houses included: Viale Europa, Piazza del Popolo, Piazza Duomo, Via Romagnosi, Via Oratorio della Pace (Boccetta South) and Piazza San Vincenzo (Boccetta North).

  9. 9.

    The areas selected in the original plan were between Villa Dante and Gazzi, in the southern section of the city. Later, they were also built along Via Tommaso Cannizzaro, the beltway, Boccetta, and Via Garibaldi.

  10. 10.

    Originally, these houses could be found in the surroundings of Villa Dante and along the Giostra and the Trapani torrents. Later, other series of buildings would be erected near the beltway, along the Giostra Torrent (Fondo De Pasquale).

  11. 11.

    Initially, these houses could be found in Torrente Gazzi, Fondo Vadalà, Fondo Tornatola, Fondo Lauritano, Fondi Martinez-Consiglio, Villaggio Matteotti (near Torrente Annunziata-Giostra). Later, they invaded the other underclass spaces, and were also built near Villa Dante, and all along Via La Farina as far as Viale Europa (Torrente Zaera), and Torrente Portalegni. Also, to the north, at the top and the bottom of the beltway, along the Giostra torrent (Fondo de Pasquale). And, in the late 1930s, also in other parts of Gazzi (Mangialupi, Via Taormina), Torrente Zaera (Bisconte, Ritiro) and Torrente Giostra (Fondo Basile) (Di Leo and La Spada 1985).

  12. 12.

    We have not used the data from the latest Istat Census since it is not very reliable. The 1971 Census revealed that there were 3344 “unfit dwellings”. In 1981, the number decreased to 635 and a few units (27 in 1990 and 72 in 2001) in the following decades, only to increase to 1170 in 2011, but a much lower number than the data from the Messina Municipality shows as far as rehabilitation is concerned. Such fluctuating data that underestimates the number of shacks is probably due to errors in the survey, so that many of the casette ultrapopolari, which fall into the rehabilitation areas were obviously registered in the census either by the officials or by the residents, as housing.

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Farinella, D., Saitta, P. (2019). Messina, From the Earthquake to the Present. In: The Endless Reconstruction and Modern Disasters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19361-4_4

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