by Paolo Aresi
Over the past year, more than five thousand people have decided to move to our city. A non-negligible number, which confirms the social mobility of recent years. Those who instead decided to leave were 3,889. The balance is positive and explains why, despite a very negative natural balance (births are half of deaths), the city has grown slightly in population.
A constant phenomenon in recent years, which has brought Bergamo back above 120 thousand inhabitants (the latest survey, as of 31 December 2023, was 121,959, of which 20,626 foreign citizens, a stable number for several years now).
Those who arrive
Where do the new inhabitants of the city come from? 3,865 are Italian citizens, 1,512 are people who come from abroad. The majority of Italian citizens arrive from Milan or its province: they are 205, approximately six percent of the new arrivals. In second place is Seriate, with 162 people, many of whom are returnees: there are quite a few young people from Bergamo who, especially when they start a family, leave the city and move to the surrounding villages for cost reasons. Once they reach a certain age, when their children are grown enough, many decide to return to Bergamo.
In third place in the ranking of immigration into the city we find Gorle: 101 residents of the town have moved to the capital. In fourth place Torre Boldone (eighty migrations) and in fifth place Dalmine (seventy-nine who passed to Bergamo). It is interesting to note that Seriate and Dalmine have more or less the same number of residents (about 25 thousand), but the migration towards the capital from Seriate is almost double (the same happens in the opposite direction, showing a stronger link between Seriate and the capital compared to Dalmine which with its hamlets presents a stronger territorial reality, less linked to the migratory flows of the capital).
New foreign residents
If instead we look at the new residents coming from foreign countries, behind Ukraine we find Bangladesh and Albania. The disastrous situation of the country, immersed in a terrible war, still weighs heavily on Ukraine’s first place. To the traditional flow of women who come to Italy to care for our elderly we must add the people who flee from that tragic reality. Incidentally, the province of Bergamo is still home to numerous Ukrainian children and teenagers who arrived here in March 2022, orphaned children, fleeing with the orphanage staff.
The new Ukrainian residents are 236, in second place are people arriving from Bangladesh, but noticeably distant: there are only 93, more or less the same as the citizens coming from Gorle. Albania is in third place with 92 new residents and Brazil is in fourth place with 66 new inhabitants. In fifth place Bolivia (which holds the record for foreign residents in Bergamo) with 46 arrivals, then Morocco with 41. (…)
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Tags: immigrants Bergamo city Ukrainians and .. Milanese
