The survey on quality of life in Italy crowns Mantova as the city where life is best. A distinction that shows how the Lombard city has managed to stand out not only in the cultural sphere.
So says ItaliaOggi, which produces the most comprehensive survey on quality of life in Italy: Mantova is the city where life is best in our country. After the great recognition and year of grace as Italian Capital of Culture 2016, Mantova has reached a new distinction that makes it not only a must-see destination for tourists, but also a city in which to live well.
Since 2011 it has always been Trento that has claimed the coveted title of city offering the best quality of life in our country; now, however, in this latest edition, Mantova beats it, placing among the best in six out of nine categories. It excels in business and employment, crime, environment, social and personal hardship, financial and educational services, and standard of living. The other categories assessed are population, the healthcare system and leisure.
The study — by ItaliaOggi and the Università La Sapienza — analyses 110 Italian provinces on the basis of nine dimensions, 21 sub-dimensions and 84 baseline indicators, to build an overall picture of wellbeing (and its absence) in Italy. For 18 years this ranking has been drawn up, determining winners and losers among the main cities, but what is the purpose of this survey? There are two objectives: to stimulate debate on the paths to be taken to increase the wellbeing — not only economic — of local communities, and to measure and bring into the public domain the gap in political and administrative action. It is therefore almost a tool for local administrators, because it becomes clear, running down the ranking, that Italy is moving at 2, perhaps 3 speeds: poor and insufficient results are concentrated in the south — Crotone comes last in the ranking — while high positions and passing scores are almost exclusively found in northern and central Italy. For Italian citizens, meanwhile, there is the curiosity of knowing what their cities are really like, better or worse than we perceive them to be, or winning or losing when compared to the most liveable places abroad.
Another striking result is the difficulty experienced by large cities such as Milan, Naples and Rome: Milan, which confirms the negative trend of recent years, drops seven places to 56th position; Naples is stable at the bottom of the ranking, sitting in 108th place. Rome fares worst among the big cities: for the first time, its quality of life has been rated insufficient. The capital drops no fewer than 19 places compared to last year's ranking, falling to 88th position. Among the worst-performing categories are: employment, crime and social hardship.
Some good news for Turin, which climbs six places in the overall ranking to settle in 70th position. The podium, beyond queen Mantova, sees Trento in second place and Belluno, which last year was only in eighth position.
Overall, quality of life is poor or insufficient in 54 of the 110 provinces analysed, and strain is recorded not only in the south and the islands, but also in the north-west regions, which in previous years had ranked higher.
One of the "dimensions" closest to our hearts is that of the environment, where the sceptre remains with Trento, followed by Mantova and Belluno, and Bolzano in fourth. It should be noted that some of the bottom-ranking positions are due not to genuinely deteriorated environmental conditions, but to the failure to communicate the statistical information relevant to the compilation of the Ecosistema urbano survey by Legambiente and Istat's Qualità dell'ambiente urbano survey, from which the study draws the majority of its statistical information. And that, too, says a great deal.
