Invest in Bologna - promobologna - Local Development Agency

Bologna, nicknamed “La Rossa” (the Red) in Italy, plans to modernise with the help of 25 billion euro of investments in urban renewal projects and new infrastructure.

According to the article in today’s Financial Times, the British financial newspaper, the city is developing an ambitious project, with a ‘big-bang’ approach, to revamp its image as a modern, up-to-date city. The article, following a prelude into the city’s historic nicknames (La Grassa‘The Fat’ for its food, La Dotta‘The Learned’ for its University and La Rossa‘The Red’ for its incorrigibly left-wing politics but also for its red rooftops), goes on to talk of a city ready to build a new reputation for itself, based on ‘modernity’ and ‘valuing the existing architecture’.

A 25 billion euro investment, writes the FT, in “an urban renewal project that ranks among the largest in Italy, if not in Europe”. Bologna has one of the highest per capita income levels in Italy (35,000 euro), but as a logistics hub for the country the city is crying out for investment in transport and urban infrastructure. Cut in two by the railway tracks (“with the Renaissance jewel on one side and 20^thCentury suburbs on the other”), Bologna will be rejoined by the new railway station designed by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. “An almost translucent white cube” that will replace the existing station, which still bears the scars of the bomb attack in August 1980. The article goes on to mention the main urban and infrastructure projects, including the ‘people mover’ and the new Bertalia-Lazzaretto University district. “Bologna is the city that most Italians wish to live in,” explains Enrico Levi, Project Manager for PromoBologna, the city’s development agency. However, the infrastructure has been at a standstill since the 1970s and the city has become a bottle neck.

Of the 25 billion cost, around 18 billion comes from government funding and also covers the high speed train lines to and from Milan and Florence and improvements to the motorway network. The city and private investors in the area willalso provide funding in the region of 6.7 billion euro. The economic recession could reset some priorities, as the former mayor of Bologna, Sergio Cofferati, pointed out to the FT. Nevertheless Cofferati remains “very optimistic”. The FT’s analysis concludes that things are already moving within the political sphere to make the projects happen, with agreements being reached on both a local and national level. The tricky part, according to the writer, will be not only to build a new, modern city but to make it blend in with the historical part, having learnt important lessons from the past (“There is little decent modern architecture in Italy, and much of what passes for urban planning since the 1960s is of poor quality”, writes the journalist). The challenge for the planners will be to insert new buildings whilst valuing the existing architecture. As Patrizia Gabellini, consultant for the Municipal Council and Professor of Architecture at Milan’s Polytechnic, explains, “It will be like wearing a beautiful, old brooch with a new jacket.”