Festival of the “Citiesenterprises”

12 february 2008 Festival of the “Citiesenterprises” 18 - 19 - 20 APRIL 2008 First Edition The landscape of joy Changes in urban areas during the transition to post-fordism Rovereto Valdagno - Schio - Thiene Montebelluna - Conegliano - Vittorio Veneto Maniago Concept and organization Nordesteuropa.it Promoters Municipalities of: Rovereto - Thiene - Valdagno - Montebelluna Conegliano - Vittorio Veneto - Maniago With the contribution of Veneto Region - Province of Trento - Friuli Venezia Giulia Region Nord Est Foundation - CUOA Foundation Industrialist Association of Vicenza Industrialist Association of Treviso - Industrialist Association of Trento Industrialist Association of the Province of Pordenone Provinces of: Vicenza, Treviso, Pordenone Chamber of Commerce of Pordenone - pordenonelegge.it Media Partners Il Sole 24 Ore - Radio 24 - La 7 - Marsilio - Domus Partner Unicredit Sponsors Poste Italiane Telecom Italia 1 Scientific Committee President Enzo Rullani Professor of Knowledge Economics and Managment at the Venice International University, Tedis Center Flavio Albanese Director of Domus Review Aldo Bonomi Director of AASTER Consortium Giancarlo Corò Professor of International Economics, University of Venice Cà Foscari Giovanni Costa Professor of Organizational Theory and Design, University of Padova Cristiana Compagno Professor of Economics, University of Udine Nadio Delai President of Ermeneia Cesare De Michelis President Marsilio Book Publisher Maria Luisa Frida Director of Corso di Laurea in Design della Moda, IUAV University of Venice Daniele Marini Professor of Sociology University of Padova Ezio Micelli Professor of Evaluation at the Department of Town Planning, IUAV University of Venice Stefano Micelli Professor of Operations Management, University of Venice Cà Foscari Franco Miracco Official Spokesman of the President of the Regional Council of Veneto Region Roberto Morelli Director of Nordesteuropa.it Claudio Pasqualetto Journalist “Il Sole 24Ore” Franca Porto Secretary-General of CISL – Veneto Region Paolo Possamai Director “La Nuova Venezia” Pierluigi Sacco Professor of Economic Policy, IUAV University of Venice Cristiano Seganfreddo Director of Fuoribiennale 2 The aim of the festival The district of the Cities of Schio-Thiene-Valdagno is one of the territories in Northern Italy that can testify more than others the industrial transformation of the past few decades. Just after being cities characterized by the presence of large industrial facilities of the textile sector (such as Marzotto and Lanerossi), they soon became the main actors of the radical transformations due to the globalization of markets, replacing the former model of the large firm with a new one, featured by relatively little multinational enterprises, mainly in the textile sector, the one that more than others seemed to be destined to decline in a country like Italy. Companies like Diesel, Marzotto, Gas and many more are today leaders for brand and sales proceeds not only in the national but also in the international market. In this district, also the areas where commercial and handcrafts activities are predominant show important transformations and show new and innovative ways of combining the traditions of manufacturing with the new opportunities that come from the knowledge economy. At the same time new large industrial districts grew, starting from Montebelluna and sprea- ding out along all the foothills both of Veneto Region up till Conegliano, and of Friuli Vene- zia Giulia Region up till Maniago, and creating new industrial districts: the footwear-factory district, that can count on international brands such as Geox and Lotto, the sportsystem district, the inox-factory district and the house-furnishing district, in which important firms like Snaidero grew. These districts gave a decisive contribution to the industrial development of the North-East Region, the same industrial development that in recent years was studied as a model of a new mass capitalism. In the territory that extends between the city of Maniago and the city of Schio we can notice a sort of metropolitan city, a succession of industrial cities (“città imprese”), that today is at the centre of a new and radical transformation, both from an architechtonical – urbanistic and from an industrial point of view. The transition from a model of capillary capitalism to one dominated by the presence of medium-size enterprises implies the redefinition and the reorganization of this new metropolitan area, not only with the development of a new system of new roads and railways (that today is still inadequate), but also with the renova- tion of a territory that today is still for the most past ruined and devastated. But today’s challenge goes beyond this. In fact, if on one hand firms and enterprises will need to improve their investments in human capital and knowledge economies in order to compete in the international market, on the other hand it is evident that this territory as a whole, and, therefore, not only his firms, needs to be renewed in order to become welcoming for thousands of qualified workers that will come here to work in one of these international and innovative corporations, in a clean and unpolluted environment where it is also possible to find important cultural and recreational initiatives. 3 The aim of the festival Just outside the Lavarone plateau, the city of Rovereto, just a few minutes away if it wasn’t for the lack of roads and infrastructures, is actually at the centre of the same transformations: it is revitalizing its economy with the creation of new research institutes and with the creation of structures like the MART, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, an important and innovative cultural initiative and a significant example of territorial marketing for the entire Garda basin area. This model, the current and future transformations, will be the core of the Festival of the “Cities- enterprises”: an annual recurrence which main scope is to make the different par- ticipants reflect and consider the recent evolutions of this territory, with the contributions, the projects and the ideas of some of the most distinguished and renowned personalities from architecture, town-planning, economy and sociology, but also establishing a tight connection with the experience of regional and local representatives and of businessmen that lived the recent transformations of medium – size enterprises. The Festival is also the occasion to invite an hundred students of great talent to visit the territory where the new model of industrial development, a model trained and shaped by a large number of small and medium size enterprises, evolved; the participation of these students will be the occasion, for the entire North-East territory, to develop a great quantity of relations, to attract future professional men and women to work in the innovative and successful firms of the area. This Festival of the “Cities-enterprises” is therefore the conference in which every year to- pics like the current evolutions of the local economy and their interactions with the quality of life of these cities and this territory are discussed. The debate is organized and held with the presence of the most renowned and distinguished personalities from all over the world, hosting them in the territory that is at the centre of those important evolutions. 4 The city becomes an enterprise, the enterprise becomes a city: reasons and challenges of a new connection. Enzo Rullani 1. An history is finishing, another one is starting For the modern city it has always be an hard challenge to cohabit with the firms that were installed in its territory in the – distant and recent – times of industrial modernity. This is more evident in a territory, the North-East area of Italy, that has been invaded by a diffuse industrialization process. As a consequence of this industrialization process, the urban and sub-urban area of thousands of small towns has been invaded by factories, machineries, “heavy” manufactures and thousands of trucks that every day come and go, without any break. Moving with great determination gross loads that the occasional passer-by will observe, not having a clue of where they are going or where they came from. The occasional passer-by will think that the space once he lived in is no longer his but belongs to an unknown logic, an elusive one. It was in this way that, in recent past, a foreign relationships has been developed between the city and the enterprise. A relationship that wasn’t only due to pollution, noise or some other superficial annoyance but that was more radical and deep: it was thelogic of the two universes – the city’s and the enterprises universes – that didn’t have a common aim. The cities that have always been populated by human beings, and by their history, were forced to host a world where machineries were in command of people and where ratio- nalist engineering was destroying history. Therefore, there were two opposite principles facing each other, two opposite ways of thinking and feeling that was hard to coordinate, in the same territory. Anyway, thirty years ago, at the beginning of the huge economic growth, these two principles didn’t seem so different and divergent because the firms, just after their arrival, had also a liberating function, not only a constrictive one. Firms allowed men and the history to stop the humiliating and oppressive perspective of poverty and misery they were in, a perspective that was heavier to deal with than the one 5 with

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