Page 35 - Milano Periferia

My wanderings in the outskirts of today always finish in mournful medita-
tions: with the end of the town become abstract and tragic, you note the
unidimensional and spiritually poor urbanization, the recurring antithesis
between the royal palace and the hovel, which, however, are on the same
plane for the only search of comfort and profit, without any trace of a
Unitarian and multiple structure of communication at different levels (social
and cultural, besides economical), the violence corrupting the slums, with
the drug, the kidnappings, the robberies. More than the pursuit of an
aseptic efficientism bent on favouring the football, basket, rugby grounds
the sport rings and even pretentions of big theatres and meeting-halls as
in the centre, I would suggest more prosaically kindergartens, consulting
centres for the working mothers, recreative clubs for the old, cultural
centres also of a local and individuated character for the young, playing
parks for the children, free libraries.

The ichonography of the outskirts is by now unfortunately already fixed in
the aspect that we know only too well; at least let it be allowed to save
the new man who inhabits it, above all the emigrants from the South (people
coming from Canosa in Puglia, from Calabria, Sicily, pilgrims arrived as
in sight of Mecca; in short, all those whom Demetrio of De Marchi called
"Neapolitans") uprooted from their land and left to their isolation in a
town which seems hostile.

The Sant’Ambrogio quarter is not certainly a dwelling-place suitable for
those who love a secluded peace. It winds its stocky form like a barrack,
revealing the constrained closeness, as a caravanserai where hundreds of
families crowd and press altogether. The cars lying outside like mild fairs
ready for the raids, the neo-gothic revival of the church at the centre, the
supermarket which is the only cold-meeting place, with a pathetic fish-tank
in front of it. There the countryside clashes, though it is not a little thing to
have it around, even if roaring with motorways.

At Baggio at least, after seeing the red hollywood-like blocks of flats of
"Pessina" burst under the blue seeming-like-wig of the sky, you find a
warm and French-reminiscent centre, there where Via delle Forze Armate
comes to an end and then you make for arcades where small privately-
owned shops aline one after the other.

And at Corsico, where the oldest of glass-factories is lodged, you can still
have an idea of what the old working-class outskirts were, rising around
the farmstead or manufactory developed into factory, with precise relation-
ships and an aggregation which results homogeneous because it went
on slowly.

Beyond the bridge, however, the forest or better still the intricacy of the
many-storeyed buildings like trees offends the sky and already dimly
appear, composing the customary casual anagram, the colossal construc-
tions of Cesano Boscone, once enhanced by the "sella" of the orchards
and by many water-courses. All this is to say that there are various
degrees of squalor: it may be attenuated by a crumbled wall, a farmstead