May 23, 2024 at 1.21pm
Stefania Portioli (president of Azione Reggio Emilia) and Michele Sartori (provincial management and municipal secretariat) write: “The shopkeepers have mobilized and chosen to do it alone but with participatory movements created from below, without parties and without trade associations. Today’s situation is the result of mistakes made in the past and of what has been carried forward or not managed in particular in the last 4 years. There are aspects to share such as the loss of public offices and the main agencies and citizen services. Promised but never built and existing underground car parks to be renovated and rationalised. A traffic that does not require speed limits as during rush hour it would be the hope of all motorists to travel at least 30 kilometers per hour. A covered market that represents a badly missed opportunity for the entire system of the historic center from a tourist, social and economic point of view and whose realignment to the destination established by the PUG will be a priority that the new administration will have to face.
The historic city is the beating, identity and cultural heart of Reggio Emilia and it is necessary to think about it as the center of the entire territory as well as of the city. A high quality historic center that offers the style of living the city of Reggio as only the people of Reggio have been able and know how to propose and which enhances the excellence, typicality and local knowledge. The ZTL accompanied and equipped with an adequate accessibility service, parking at reasonable costs as required by the regional law on historic centres, the creation of guarded bicycle depots to encourage their use are the first solutions, although not sufficient. It is necessary to have a clear and precise vision of the city for the future. Mobility must be completely revised and not subjected to partial solutions. The green/red wave must be rethought and environmentally redeveloped as an area, as it represents a barrier of clear separation between the historic center and the remaining part of the city. The revisiting of the green/red wave must be considered taking into account a relaunch of the strategic choices of traffic as a whole starting from the closure of the ring of the southern and northern ring road and the identification of the radials connecting to the various areas of interest in the city and parking lots.
When we talk about reviving the hexagon there are proposals that must be addressed to citizens but it is necessary to create real services for tourism which Reggio Emilia does not have both in terms of incoming customers and visitors to our companies as well as tourists curious about culture and of food and wine. We should think about the tourism system to see Reggio integrated into the circuits of neighboring cities such as Parma and Modena with much more significant demand flows. Reggio Emilia, as highlighted by the Region’s data for 2023, hosted less than half of the tourists of Parma and of these only 40 percent were foreign. Tourism is a fact to be considered not only because tourists are more inclined to make high-value and quality purchases, but because it measures the attractiveness of a place which, enhanced with frequent events, becomes attractive for the citizens themselves.
Azione Reggio Emilia proposes to listen and discuss with residents, traders, restaurateurs, tourist operators, professional orders, associations and all those who are committed to a livelier center to continue what they have already proposed and set up a concrete and overall proposal. With this in mind we have organized an open public meeting which will be held in the historic center in the Catomes Tôt cultural centre, on Monday 27 May at 7pm”.
