The proposals of the Florentine Confcommercio, from security to infrastructure and mobility, such as the strengthening of the airport, taxis and car parks
Confcommercio meets the candidates for Mayor of Florence. It was the meeting with Eike Schmidt to open today, Tuesday 30 April, the calendar of discussions that the Florentine Confcommercio is planning to better understand all the candidates for Mayor of the city of Florence. Those with will follow in the coming weeks Sara Funaro (on May 9) and with Stefania Saccardi (the 16th), then the others still to be fixed.
The Board of Directors of the Florentine Confcommercio, led by the president Aldo Cursano and the director Franco Marinoni, gave the center-right candidate Schmidt a document containing some proposals for the development of the tertiary sector.
A document divided into six chapters which touches on macro-topics on which the trade association recommends focusing to enhance development and employment in tertiary companies, as well as to improve the liveability of Florence and its ability to welcome residents and tourists.
With around 10 thousand members in the province of Florence alone and over 50 thousand throughout Tuscany, Confcommercio is the most representative economic trade association: “it is the strength of numbers, combined with the awareness of representing so many entrepreneurs and professionals, that motivates us to find a dialogue with all the candidates, regardless of political alignments and ideologies. Whoever is elected to lead the Municipality must know from now on that in Confcommercio they will have an attentive and proactive interlocutor, a reliable and reliable source of ideas and considerations”, specifies director Franco Marinoni.
“Our Association is biased, yes, that of the companies, which proudly insert themselves into the historical tradition of a trade that over the centuries has done a lot to build this city”, said the president Aldo Cursano, “we must work together Administration to improve the sustainability and quality of living in Florence”.
“I found great harmony with the requests that Confcommercio makes to the candidates for Mayor – declared Eike Schmidt on the sidelines of the meeting in the headquarters in Piazza Annigoni – almost all of the points present in the document are already found in my electoral programme. And if two people, independently, think the same thing, it means that it is not totally wrong…”.
“Our aim is to be an active contribution to the good governance of the territory, since the market tertiary sector is entrusted with a fundamental role not only for the good health of the economy and for the provision of important services to citizens, but also for maintaining a high level of quality of life and hospitality – writes the tertiary association in the introduction to the document – Protecting tertiary companies means recognizing the value they have for the production of wealth, employment and the protection of the entire socio-economic fabric of the city”.
The proposals of the Florentine Confcommercio range on various fronts, from that of security to infrastructure and mobility, with the request, for example, of strengthening of the airport, taxi service and parking system. An entire chapter of the document is dedicated to tourismwith the request for “a holistic and strategic approach, that takes into account both the economic benefits and the risks to the community and the environment. Among the hopes of Confcommercio, that “the city of Florence equips itself, also in collaboration with Toscana Promozione Turistica, with a observatory that calculates its own tourism exposure index (Tourism exposure) to measure the intensity and extension of the tourism phenomenon, where “intensity” means the concentration of tourists in a specific area (or period) and “extension” means the diffusion of the phenomenon in a specific area. Only with precise numerical analyses, in fact, can we defeat the not always correct perception of the impoverishment and commodification of the city caused by tourism, banning sterile controversies that proverbially throw away “baby and bathwater”.
To this request, Confcommercio adds its willingness to “find solutions that do not economically mortify tourism businesses and professionals, but which are respectful of the city fabric” in terms of fight against illegal construction, remodulation of the tourist tax, strengthening of the Florence Foundation and Visitor Bureau and opening of a discussion with property managers, hosts and owners of non-hotel accommodation facilities. Fundamentally, the awareness that Florence must equip itself with “tools and new eyes to look at tourism, with the experimentation of models that seek a balance between the tourist economy and the resident community, between the protection of its artistic emergencies without falling into elitism and without embalming the city by virtue of a glorious idea of the past”.
Among the actions useful for the care of local trade, the association highlights the need for more balanced and rewarding taxation for some types of activities, by virtue of the service they provide to the community, but also particular attention to street furniture, lighting and public green. “Making the city more beautiful, livable and welcoming, in a sustainable way, also has positive effects on businesses, both directly and indirectly – underlines Marinoni. “Florence is a wonderful city, full of art, history, culture, beauty in general. But probably also very characterized by stone, concrete, asphalt. And in certain seasons this risks making it sometimes ‘incandescent’. For this reason, we indicate the green streetfrom increase as in the case of the orange trees in via Cavour, as a desirable and almost obligatory direction to mitigate heat waves by reducing temperatures in cities, as well as to maintain better air quality”.
