“Four friends at the bar” is what remains in the squares of wonderful villages afflicted by depopulation, gradually uprooted by centuries of life. What gets lost along the way, mostly the one leading to the North, are cultures and traditions, victims of the long season of disinvestment.
It also appears among these realities Librizzi, on whose population a blow of the axe, that of the general trend of abandoning the hinterlands due to the urgency of work, has halved the inhabitants from over 3000 in the second half of the last century to just under 1600 today (of which half moved in turn to the hamlet of Colla Maffone). A chronic decrease in the number of residents, due to the uneven ratio between births and deaths, with fewer and fewer young couples offering new demographic hopes.
Good air, tranquility and social cohesion, but what are the opportunities? Difficult careers and prospects often give new generations no choice, leaving mayors in the trenches who scrape the bottom of budgets to guarantee basic services. Infrastructure, schools and even the general practitioner gave Librizzi a hard time, who risked being left without it when even the “family doctor” decided to transfer his business to Colla Maffone. «The battle is the logic of numbers and the continuous impoverishment of services always to the detriment of small towns – explains mayor Renato Di Blasi -. Let’s try to exploit the intercepted funding by expanding it as much as possible in favor of other related works.” In fact, all you have to do is reach the central square to see the size of the construction sites involved in redoing the look of the town, whose setting offers breathtaking views between the green of the Nebrodi and the blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea from which the Aeolian Islands can be seen generously nestled.
Natural fortunes that cannot bear comparison with modern needs: «We have demolished dozens of ruins, enhancing urban decor and creating new social spaces – continues Di Blasi –, but what can a mountain municipality do which, however, mind you, is not included in the list of the same name? Excluded from the resulting incentives, we are left to witness the effects of decentralization tout court, with sparse maintenance interventions that make us long for the precious work of road workers now in extinction. The only things that patch up the bad roads are ordinances aimed at reducing the speed up to 10 km/h and banning transit, further affecting the connections. In practice, the Municipalities can only hope for targeted policies that overcome short-sighted maneuvers and contributions that solve nothing without planning that extends over time.”
Proof of 9 could be called the Municipality of Montagnareale, which stands just 300 meters from the sea and about 5 km from Pattitherefore within easy reach of all services. Yet, depopulation did not spare either the town of fountains and chestnutsgeographically fortunate enough to be a stone’s throw from the coastal centers while enjoying the sought-after hilly tranquility. A perfect combination, strengthened by the presence of the emergency medical service, the post office, nurseries, sports facilities equipped with various fields and a municipal swimming pool, and a large community center open to various events. Here too the mayor, Salvatore Sidoti, tries to make the village he manages more attractive, strengthening historic events and trying to support the start-up of new activities. But the window of just one twenty years, the last one, sees the number of residents reduced by over 400 inhabitants, going from around 1800 to less than 1400. Here too, it is the younger generations who are missing out, making the reasons for social flight clearer: the structural lack of qualified job opportunities and the persistent gap in expectations and general conditions of professional and personal fulfillment. This is the big gap: if Italy is not a country for young people, the South is even less so.
