Il lento avvicinamento

Since the Unification of Italy, approximately eight thousand municipalities have organized the Italian population within a changing and irregular mosaic. The volume studies their temporal and spatial relationships, reconstructing the evolution and spatial distribution of the Italian population from 1861 to 1991. What emerges is a secular path of internal and external migrations, urbanizations and depopulations, which have led the country from an ancient spatial distribution to today's configuration. This restructuring is characterized as a slow convergence, a progressive geographical aggregation of the population, not only in large cities but also in old and new urban centers. The quantitative analysis of these trends also makes it possible to trace the influence of the great economic and social transformations of the twentieth century. The volume thus allows us to retrace the history of the country from an unusual perspective, shedding new light on some fundamental themes, from industrialization to the economic miracle, through the great migrations and fascism. The volume finally examines in depth, as a case study, the construction of the national railway network and proposes some initial empirical results on its local and national effects.