For years in Italy, the so-called North-East phenomenon has been hailed, studied, copied, arousing enthusiastic reactions throughout the economic world, which downplayed the negative aspects discharged on the territory.
It is in the heart of this territory that there is the highest concentration of warehouses, there are 92,000, one for every 54 inhabitants, and they are scattered in an infinity of industrial and artisan areas that occupy 18.4% of the territory.
Building without any rules, with industrial areas pulverised in every small municipality, devoid of any planning.
The last few years of severe crisis have left over 11,000 disused warehouses on the ground, with a commercial value of almost four billion euro.
Forgotten places, a no man’s land prey to the nature that reappropriates them, fleeting shelters for the homeless and illegal immigrants or gyms for writers.
And in addition to the degradation, it should be remembered that highly polluting materials have often been used to build them: one above all is asbestos, which was widely used until a few decades ago in construction and industry, especially for the roofs of industrial warehouses, which are now falling to pieces and poisoning the land.
These sites now represent an emergency whose solution can no longer be postponed.
