In Italy, there are many social problems. Two that I found particularly interesting is their extreme drought as well as their dealing with refugees.
On the conversation of refugees, I talked to people working at refugee camps, Refugees, and native Italians without any direct insight into the issue. Many people mentioned the peculiar situation of Italy going from a country with huge portions of the populations fleeing poverty and going to the US and Brazil to a country with millions of people trying to sneak into the country every year through dangerous, overpacked boats from Africa. Italy is also not a country with a flourishing economy as I originally imagined. Therefore, the idea of people going to Italy for better job opportunity is very unexpected.
One idea that I heard about during my Italian class in the fall and then researched more since being over here is the 1 Euro houses in southern Italy. These are attempts to protect small towns currently abandoned due to young Italians fleeing to big cities like Milan, Rome, or leaving Italy entirely in search of work. There has been a recent movement to try to integrate many of the incoming immigrants into these places to reduce the depopulation currently occurring there. While this is a good idea for depopulation, it doesn’t address the fact that these people are trying to get into Italy for economic opportunity not present in the South.
