Word: mezzogiorno
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Rocky Reform. With the end of their oldest plague, all new things have become possible for the proud, primitive islanders. Italy's ambitious, $2 billion Cassa del Mezzogiorno (Fund for the South) is now transforming the rocky, scrub-covered face of Sardinia. Already the fund's associated agencies have taken over a third of the island's arable land from large holders and passed it out to peasants in 15-acre plots. By draining the old malarial swamps, the agencies are making another 185,000 acres of cropland for small holders. But the most ambitious project...
...decades the barren, overcrowded Mezzogiorno-the southern two-fifths of Italy that has 37% of the nation's population-has been a vast poorhouse. And World War II, which destroyed 28% of the south's already lagging industrial capacity (v. 18% in the north), seemed the final blow. Only 308 out of every 1,000 Mezzogiornisti held jobs (many for only 80 days yearly), and in scores of squalid piazze lounged hundreds of men young and old who had never had a day's work. Richer Mezzogiornisti lived four and five in a room; the poor inhabited...
Last week hope was soaring high in the Mezzogiorno. The reason: a $70 million World Bank loan, the largest European development credit granted by the bank to date. It went to Italy's Cassa per Il Mezzogiorno (Southern Development Fund), the special government agency set up in 1950 to push a twelve-year, $2 billion southern revival program. Hampered by petty politics, minor graft and insufficient funds ($180 million yearly), the Cassa has moved slowly for the size of the job, but results are already apparent. It has stimulated $320-million worth of private investment in the region...