Knowing that the Italian Trade Union (USI-CIT) is actively fighting against land consumption in Bologna and its province, I was asked to write an article about what's happening in Pilastro. I'll try to say something about it. ---- First: what is Pilastro? It's a peripheral area of Bologna, located in the northeast of the city. It was designed in the late 1950s to accommodate immigration related to industrial development. Further housing development followed until the mid-1980s, and then again around 2000. Initially, the neighborhood lacked basic services: water, paved roads, and public transportation. To achieve better living conditions, residents organized themselves into the Tenants Committee, which was active until the late 1990s. The Committee's work contributed to important achievements: buses, schools, healthcare services, sports facilities, and a library.
The first inhabitants were mostly from southern Italy and the poorest areas of Emilia-Romagna. Later, immigrants from Kosovo, other countries of the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Morocco, Tunisia, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Pakistan, and Bangladesh joined them. Their homes are more than decent, and although the neighborhood has been described since its inception as a run-down suburb at the mercy of gangs of thugs, people have always been able to move freely and peacefully. If it's making headlines again today, it's only because of the construction of the so-called "Museum of Girls and Boys."
What is it? According to the Bologna City Council, it's: "A playful factory of experience and knowledge where young visitors can learn by doing, experimenting, manipulating, and playing. (...) Thirteen proposals competed for the competition (...) which offered the award of the technical and economic feasibility study for the project: a challenge (...) to create a new cultural center of national importance, dedicated to education, knowledge, and entertainment, aimed at children aged 0 to 12, schools, and families.
It's a shame (for the municipal administration) that it's being built where there was once a lawn with several trees, and that in Bologna, for several years now, lively disputes have been underway, sometimes victorious, against the felling of trees and land use. A committee (Mu.Basta) was immediately formed to oppose the museum's construction, attempting to oppose it, gaining the support of many Bolognese people, including those not living in the neighborhood...
For example, on February 25th, lawyer Mario Bovina (who has nothing to do with the Mu.Basta Committee) wrote on his Facebook page: "Frankly, I don't quite understand what this Mu.Ba. (Museum of Girls and Boys) is, not even after reading the bullshit on the city's website.
From what I remember of my childhood (a lot), I would have much preferred doing what I actually did (playing free with soccer or blowpipes on the playgrounds around my house) than being deported to a fenced-in hangar to have "experiences" designed for me by adults.
But, I understand, it was the Pliocene, we were very free children, governed as best we could by a network of mothers leaning on their balconies who almost always, in the end, gave up and patiently awaited the spontaneous return at dusk of grazed knees, sweaty heads, and muddy clothes.
Today, children are rare. Prisoners behind the thousand bars of their parents' anxieties and expectations, of their own loneliness, of their lack of habituation to free physical contact with their peers, of the lack of "playgrounds."
So, instinctively, I think the children of Pilastro (assuming there are any) liked the ramshackle woods more than they will this box called a museum, which, in fact, I don't think they'll ever be able to set foot in on their own.
But there were about six million euros to spend. And such an argument these days defies all objections.
Museum be, farewell to Alberini.
Children of 2026, I don't envy you all that much."
However, the municipal administration, recently defeated in the disputes over land use relating to Don Bosco Park, San Leonardo Garden, and Zucca, is not giving up. And the Pilastro has been filled with hundreds of police officers deployed to defend the construction site. Clashes, arrests, and complaints have followed.
We'll see how this ends...
Luciano Nicolini
https://umanitanova.org/bambini-da-museo-bologna-zona-pilastro-contro-il-consumo-di-suolo/
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Link: (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #10-26 - Museum Children. Bologna: Pilastro District Against Land Consumption (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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