The consortium for the Syracuse industrial area and the Italconsult Plan, 1949-1973

The essay analyzes, in a period of over twenty years, the history of one of the most industrialized site in Southern Italy. In particular it studies the Plan for the Industrial Development of Syracuse and the complex procedure for its passing. This essay recounts a period of over twenty years in the history of one of the most industrialized sites in Southern Italy, by analyzing the plan for the industrial development area in Siracusa and by reconstructing its lengthy process of approval. The study underlines the territorial strategy of the Italconsult Plan, which was elaborated at beginning of the 1960s, and documents the global approach addressed to the development of the area; at the same time, it underlines how this plan modified an area already transformed by the placement of many industrial enterprises. Between 1950 and 1960, the industrialization process of the coastal area from Augusta to the Northern suburb of Syracuse was realized out of any planning strategy and programs for territorial infrastructure. In the first part of the essay, the process of industrial settlement is described, by underlining the relevant imbalances generated by territorial transformations. After that, the Italconsult Plan had a very difficult execution, also because of the government’s decision to institute only one area for industrial development in western Sicily, which includes the provinces of Syracuse and Catania. The Plan for the industrial development of the Southern area (Syracuse) of Eastern Sicily was approved only in 1973, in the midst of the first international petroleum crisis; as a consequence, the planning tool that was supposed to guide the development of one of the principal Italian petrochemical poles turned out to be already obsolete at the time of its approval.

Keywords: Sicily Eastern Sicily industrial development area Syracuse Petrochemical industry Asi territorial plan

Fabio Salerno, Il consorzio per l’Area industriale di Siracusa e il Piano dell’Italconsult, 1949-1973 in "STORIA URBANA " 130/2011, pp , DOI: 10.3280/SU20011-130005