Italy and The Eco-Monsters

Post-WWII Italy experienced an economic boom, and in Italian history the ten years that span from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s are called "il miracolo economico" -- the economic miracle. High economic growth (there was a higher economic growth rate in those ten years than there was in the previous 50 combined), and a steep increase in agricultural production, manufacturing, and exports, changed the lives of a generation of Italians, giving them access to goods and services to which they were never before privy. In simplest terms, Italy became a rich country overnight.

Il Miracolo Economico was also host to a building boom, and in that boom much of the ugliness that today surrounds Milano, Roma and Genova was built. However, not all of the building boom happened in or around big cities; much of it happened on the Italian coastline. From Liguria to Calabria, from Le Marche to Puglia, the Italian coastline was developed, and all too often, grotesquely. In a 1957 novel by Italo Calvino, La Speculazione Edilizia, the coastal building boom is called "la squallida invasione del cemento" -- the squalid invasion of cement. More than any other place, Calvino was referring to San Remo, the Ligurian city in which he spent his childhood, and a city whose coastline was destroyed by development.

Today Italians refer to many of the monstrosities built on their coastline as gli ecomostri -- the eco-monsters.

Thursday morning, Punta Perotti, (pictured above and below) the beast of Bari, was put to rest. The beast tortured the Adriatic skyline for close to a decade.
On April 18th, the second day of demolition, protestors packed the streets with dozens of banners that read "Bentornato Lungomare" -- Welcome Back Promenade. The ocean can now be seen from the city.