CREMONA – With the run-off round just around the corner, Andrea Virgilio is also calling his people together for the last electoral appointments. Today in particular it was the mayors of Pavia and Bergamo, fresh from being elected in the first round in their cities, who demonstrated their support for the centre-left candidate. The theme chosen for the discussion moderated by the director of the newspaper La Provincia Paolo Gualandris is that of youth policies, with a particular focus on the challenge of universities that the two Lombardy capitals have faced for years.
«The cities that don’t invest in training – began the Bergamo woman Elena Carnevali — they are those that have the least chance of overcoming the challenges that await us: attractiveness and competitiveness. Bergamo has had the ability to become an international city by capturing the wind that students bring to the social fabric of cities.” The opinion of the mayor of Bergamo on the challenges posed by the young population in the city does not have a hint of fear: «We are hungry for young people. It will be thanks to them, to a gaze that passes through their lenses, that we will be able to seize the opportunities of internationalization and of a world in continuous and very rapid transformation”.
The public who followed the meeting this afternoon in Largo Boccacino in front of Andrea Virgilio’s electoral headquarters
And if Carnevali focuses on attractiveness it is Michele Lissianew mayor of Pavia, to complete the picture by focusing on another central aspect: «We must also think about how to keep students in our territories, knowing how to intercept the needs and requirements of young people. The quality of teaching is not the only factor that weighs on the choice of our children, the lion’s share often comes from the quality of life and the cultural offering of the cities.”
Lissia also undermines the rhetoric according to which university life would plunge residents into the nightmare of bad nightlife. «What is missing too often is listening: young people have needs for leisure and aggregation that must be respected and tolerated. In the same way, residents ask for peaceful rest and security: the role of a good administrator is to balance everyone’s interests first and foremost in the dialogue between the parties.” But what contributes to defining a good quality of life for university students? Lissia responds without hesitation «Agregation, participation, sport and culture are the elements that make the difference».
A transversal offer that Virgilio in Cremona also looks at: «I don’t believe too much in thematic departments for young people: for me the policies that concern them are transversal and speak of the present and future of our cities». What is needed, for the outgoing deputy mayor, is listening and involvement: «The kids have asked us for study spaces, but underlying there is the need for aggregation, to meet up, to create in the meeting. And we want to move in this direction, promoting widespread associationism and granting spaces for self-management.” This is because we realized that in Cremona young people have an extremely private and ‘hidden’ way of experiencing sociality. The objective of our administration will be to open the doors to a public way of experiencing life in the city.”
