Carl Sauer e gli ultimi lavori sul continente americano. The Early Spanish Main

Carl Ortwin Sauer (1889-1975), capostipite della Scuola di Berkeley, è da molti considerato il padre fondatore della geografia culturale contemporanea, ma la sua opera complessiva è generalmente poco conosciuta in Italia. Il geografo americano è noto alla comunità scientifica internazionale per aver scritto nel 1925 il saggio “The Morphology of Landscape”, che individua chiaramente una nuova strada metodologica da seguire in Geografia. Obiettivo del presente lavoro è di focalizzare l’attenzione sull’interessante produzione degli ultimi anni di vita del geografo. In particolare si discuterà del lungo lavoro di ricerca e della metodologia utilizzata per le analisi del continente americano ai tempi di Cristoforo Colombo prendendo in considerazione l’ambizioso lavoro del 1966 The Early Spanish Main

The Seal on the Seventh Art: Bergman and the Fårö Island

Over the past two decades, the link between culture, economy and local development has been growing. Film-induced tourism is a phenomenon that has only recently been created, sometimes unintentionally, thanks to television programs or films that have expressed a growing bond between the narrated events and the land or environment. The aim of this paper is to examine the case of a movie tourism proposal relates to film productions out of date, although very important in the past. We discuss the relation between film-induced tourism and the work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, with specific reference to some of his films in his beloved island of Fårö.Negli ultimi due decenni il legame tra cultura, economia e sviluppo locale è andato crescendo. Il cineturismo rappresenta una pratica molto recente, nata grazie a prodotti televisivi o cinematografici che hanno espresso un legame sempre più forte tra le vicende narrate e il territorio. Obiettivo di questo lavoro è esaminare il caso di una pratica cineturistica riferibile a produzioni cinematografiche non più attuali, anche se molto importanti in passato. Si propone il caso studio relativo all’opera del regista svedese Ingmar Bergman con preciso riferimento ad alcuni suoi film girati nella tanto amata isola di Fårö

Una geografia dei confini tra passato e modernità

Le dinamiche di distribuzione dei gruppi umani nell’ecumene e l’uso della stessa per la sopravvivenza e per lo sviluppo delle comunità, hanno originato una organizzazione di spazi terrestri caratterizzata da molteplici confini, perfettamente leggibili su più livelli, non solo territoriali

Precaution and protection policies of urban ecosystem in the Iblea north eastern coast of Sicily

According to the hypothetical urban scenarios in the future, the urban ecosystem will be the piace where the most part of people live, with a deep negative impact on the world ecosystem. So it is necessary for all the people to get better ways of life in the towns and less and less unbalanced urban space, that to say a clean, efficiency and productive place that satisfies the needs of its inhabitants. A fundamental aim to the restoration of conditions of equity in the city seems to come from the models of development of sustainable city, related to the improvement of the environment and, above all, to a plan of sustainable society. Leaving from the indications of the European urban policies and those coming from issues about European, Mediterranean and Sicilian experiences, the team of present research may suggest he better political and technological choices adapted to the governance of urban ecosystem (with particular care for the waste, he transports, the management of the water and energetic resources) of the greater Sicilian cities an above all, of those if the Eastern Sicily. They will not come finally neglected the problematic related to the monitoring activities, both in function of the control of the environmental state and that of the continue verify of environmental impact of the pursued choices. Particular attention will be turned to the preventing of the seismic risk.

Two solitudes: Singalesi e Tamil tra Catania e Palermo

Immigrants from Sri Lanka in Sicily are the prevailing representatives of the Indian Subcontinent. Their migration took place with the beginning of the ethnic conflict which started in 1983. The two communities, Sinhalese and Tamils, decided to settle respectively in Catania and Palermo proposing the same distrust of the conflict. So the “two solitudes” of the two major Sicilian cities are also the mirror of the lack of communication of the two ethnic groups of Sri Lanka

Trade as a cultural identity aspect in a city. A case study on Catania

In the present-day post-industrial society and in a globalised economy there is a strong tendency towards standardization and homologation. If we consider one of the most traditional urban functions - the commercial one - analysing what is happening in the centre of the cities of all the developed countries of the world, we notice a process of standardization regarding the offer, both in the sense of the single articles sold and in the sense of the commercial area in all its complexity (uniformity of the showcases for the exposure, diminution of the historical shops with sale of distinctive articles, diffusion of the branches of national and international chains and the phenomenon of franchising). Therefore, the central areas of our cities tend to be more and more alike. Obviously this is fruit of a more complex process, that is concretized in the tendency towards the diversification of the distributive network through the rapid diffusion of hypermarkets and commercial centres in the outskirts of cities and in the changed behaviour of the consumers, more and more directed to American styles of consumption. What kind of role will the more traditional commercial structures that characterize the Italian historical centres have in the future? Despite the fact that these last ones are, at the moment, under considerable pressure that pushes towards a more radical change, there is the possibility however that the particular "commercial landscape" that characterizes them could itself become a new model of development capable of promoting the urban culture, close to the functionalistic model, currently in expansion, totally directed towards the peripheral spaces. Catania is a city where we find, to a great extent, the evolutionary characteristics of the southern urban system, but in which we find even more the changes and the tendencies present in the cities of the more developed regions when processes of decentralization of economic activities, residential activities and of the social structures are outlined. The commercial patrimony of Catania, besides the cultural one, represents one of the pivots on which the identity of the city is based. It represents a resource for the development of the town and a stimulation of tourism. This research investigates the solidity and the potentialities of traditional commerce in the central areas of the city of Catania in relation to the dynamics of development of the external commercial centres.

A NEW DIALETICS CENTRE/PERIPHERY

This paper deals with the analysis of current changes which have been recently shaping unprecedented urban structures in some suburban areas, due to the emerging of new consumptions spaces. In particular, the work aims at highlighting the effect of urban sprawl on the main Sicilian metropolitan areas, also moulded by the diffusion of the suburban retailing formats, in order to evaluate to what extent these dynamics have been contributing to the configuration of new urban landscapes and unprecedented socio-economic structures, not to mention the  new consumption spacessupport in the process of containing social and economic marginalisation

Quel che resta della Vucciria

Local markets born with the city and are often spontaneously concentrated in the central areas playing a key role in the development of the local economy. The activity that takes place in them is not only material, but also social and cultural. In recent decades a strong decay is observed not only in a part of the historical center of Palermo (Sicily), but also in the related symbols. The aim of this work is to investigate in detail which causes are associated with the decline of one of the most famous historical markets in Italy, the Vucciria, so finely described by Leonardo Sciascia, Renato Guttuso and Andrea Camilleri

Recensione al volume Fuligni P., Rognini P., La metropoli umana. Economia e politica per la qualità della vita nelle città di oggi, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2007, 248 pp.

Si tratta di una recensione pubblicata sulla Rivista Geografica Italiana, annata CXV, fasc 3, sett. 2008, pp.404-40