GROSSETO. To combat the depopulation of historic centers and create projects that are safeguards of sociality and safety, we need to revitalize commerce and stop the bleeding of shop closures.
The leaders of Confcommercio Grosseto, the president Giulio Gennari and the director Gabriella Orlando agree with the interventions of the president of the Republic Mattarella and the national president of Confcommercio Sangalli in the assembly which was held in Rome and which was attended by a large number delegation from Grosseto, including vice-president Valter Bruni and vice-president Stefania Fasano.
«Grosseto finds itself perfectly in the words of Mattarella and Sangalli – says the provincial president Giulio Gennari – it is a city like the others, with its characteristics, in which it is necessary to have security, a greater presence of public affairs in the central areas, but also in the suburbs and it is necessary for local institutions to recognize an indispensable role for us in governing certain trends which, by force of circumstances, also lead our city from being the welcoming place we know to a wild place and not at all friendly to commerce and of life”.
For Gennari the objective is to bring “commerce back to having control of the territory in the cities, which means reviving the historic centers, reviving the suburbs, counteracting that trend that has been established in the last 15 years and which has led to the closure of many shops.”
«We have calculated – specifies the director Gabriella Orlando – that there have been at least 300 shops which, among the 27 municipalities of the province and the capital municipality, have closed in the last 2 years. This data may not be exact but certainly by default. The progressive reduction of neighborhood businesses corresponds exactly to the impoverishment of the neighborhoods and the city, because a living organism changes its connotation when it becomes impoverished in commercial services: in addition to becoming deserted, it becomes more insecure and unattractive. It is necessary that there are national, regional and above all municipal policies to encourage the resettlement of shops on the street, because they shed light, because they attract traffic and therefore there is a lot of work to be done, but no one should feel excluded from the duty to work there. By interacting with Confcommercio, the proposals that we continue to make and which can be adopted without even too much financial commitment could be examined. Administrations must encourage settlements and above all they must meet the needs of commercial businesses, also by simplifying and reducing the level of bureaucracy which is unbearable.”
President Mattarella recognized, together with Minister Urso, the importance of neighborhood businesses for the life of cities. «This heartens us – adds Orlando – The fact of recognizing it and taking care of it is already crucial for us. We have been denouncing this phenomenon for years, our cry of pain has not been considered enough. Now the government has finally recognized that we need to act to bring neighborhood businesses into cities as safeguards for sociality, safety and a healthy economy.”
«Grosseto – according to President Gennari – anyone who lived there years ago and sees it today finds it profoundly deteriorated both in its historic centre, prey to phenomena common to many cities and certainly not as positive as the baby gangs, but above all lacking in safeguards safety. New commercial establishments would help citizens perceive the center as a highly livable area. In the center of the city we must also mention the housing settlement, which has shrunk in size due to the loss of many services over the last twenty years. The city suffers from environmental change which generates, exactly as President Mattarella said, a impoverishment of the social fabric and undermines the principle of democracy of the country. The Maremma has great potential, the city is very beautiful, even if we Grosseto people tend to underestimate it, the surroundings are attractive from a naturalistic and tourist point of view. It’s up to us to recreate those things that existed twenty years ago and frame everything in a logic of progress and a sustainable future.”
The national president Carlo Sangalli said that trade represents almost 50% of the country’s GDP. «We are very close to these numbers – according to Gabriella Orlando – because, having a very small fabric of industrial companies, the presence of the tertiary market in the province is very close to 50% even if the imbalance between large-scale distribution and neighborhood businesses.”
