Why is Southern Italy poorer than Northern Italy?

[Wolf]

Almost all Southern Italian regions have a GDP that is 75% lower than the EU average. Until now, several attempts were made to solve this problem, but all of them finally failed.

I have found some reasons for this issue:

• lack of ressources
• lack of industry
• no land-reform
• peripheral location
• organized crime

What do you think, do you have another explanations?

[Smaug]

• lack of Celtic blood

I'm joking, the main point regarding this subject is that Northern Italy lived the process of industrialization during the end of the 19th Century, while Southern Italy remained based on the agricultural and familiar economy

[Lemon Kush]

Lazy wogs

[Peyrol]

Almost all Southern Italian regions have a GDP that is 75% lower than the EU average. Until now, several attempts were made to solve this problem, but all of them finally failed.

I have found some reasons for this issue:

• lack of ressources
• lack of industry
• no land-reform
• peripheral location
• organized crime

What do you think, do you have another explanations?

Because they like to scream '''fucking notherner you took our resources'', while in reality they don't like to change and they like to be nourished by Rome and, obviously, by our northern money.

That's why regions like Calabria have almost half of Lombard or Venetic GDP, both nominal and pro-capita.



...and that's why they (southerners) compose 60-65% of northern italian population.




...ah, don't forget another important factor: organized crime.

[American_Hispanist]

^uhtred post sums it all.

Starting with the unification of Italy in 1861, a wide and increasing economic divide has been noticeably growing between the northern provinces and the southern half of the Italian state.[54] In the early decades of the new kingdom, the lack of an effective land reform, heavy taxes and other economic measures imposed on the South, together with the removal of protectionist tariffs on agricultural goods, made the situation virtually impossible for many tenant farmers, and small business and land owners. Multitudes chose to emigrate rather than try to eke out a meager living, especially from 1892 to 1921.[55]

In addition, the surge of brigandage and the mafia provoked widespread violence, corruption and illegality. After the rise of Benito Mussolini, the "Iron Prefect" Cesare Mori tried to defeat the already powerful criminal organizations flourishing in the South with some degree of success. Fascist policy aimed at the creation of an Italian empire and Southern Italian ports were strategic for all commerce towards the colonies. Naples enjoyed a demographic and economic rebirth, mainly thanks to the interest of King Victor Emmanuel III who was born there.[56] With the invasion of Southern Italy, the Allies restored the authority of the mafia families lost during the Fascist period and used their influence to maintain public order.[57]

In the 1950s the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno was set up as a huge public master plan to help industrializing the South, aiming to do this in two ways: through land reforms creating 120,000 new smallholdings, and through the "Growth Pole Strategy" whereby 60% of all government investment would go to the South, thus boosting the Southern economy by attracting new capital, stimulating local firms, and providing employment. However, the objectives were largely missed, and as a result the South became increasingly subsidized and state dependent, incapable of generating private growth itself.[58]

Even at present, huge regional disparities persist. Problems in Southern Italy still include widespread political corruption, pervading organized crime and very high unemployment rates.[59] It is estimated that about 80% of the businesses in the Sicilian cities of Catania and Palermo regularly pay protection money.[60] The Confesercenti reported that organized crime generated €140 billion in gross sales,[61] an estimated annual profit of €100 billion, and boasted estimated cash reserves of €65 billion

[Peyrol]

Another reason (but not the main reason) that, as piemontese, i know well

(i quote an old post of mine in another discussion):

Specifically about Piemont....definitely the so called ''Spedizione dei Mille'' (''Expedition of the Thousands) in 1861;

In this years, the little alpine state of Piemont, after the takeover of Lombardy from Austria and the annexation of central Italy (except Vatican), planned the definitive invasion and conquest of the huge Kingdom of Two Sicilies, the pansouthern italian state...

here the political map of Piemont-Sardinia, who became ''Italy'', in 1859...in orange our territories, in pink Kingdom of Two Sicilies and in azure the Vatican.




...and here the political map of former Piemont-Sardinia, now ''Kingdom of Italy'', after the ''Spedizione dei Mille'', in 1861







...basically, the conquest of the South was a cultural genocide, and literally erased the former Two Sicilies economy, agriculture, industries, etc...some piemontese intellectuals also wrote about the ''non-europeaness'' of southern italians....millions of southern itialians started a massive emigration (now you people can understand why 90% of italians outside italy are southerners) who lasted until 1950...the differences between north and southern Italy are still stronger 152 years after the so called ''Unification''.


...yea, this is definitely a great crime...

[Damião de Góis]

Regional GDP per capita, OECD 2011:



While southern Italy does worse than northern Italy, they don't do that bad on the wider scale. The reason for their worse results, among others, is surely their more peripherical position in comparison to north Italy.

[Peyrol]

Regional GDP per capita, OECD 2011:



While southern Italy does worse than northern Italy, they don't do that bad on the wider scale. The reason for their worse results, among others, is surely their more peripherical position in comparison to north Italy.

Nope.

Friuli has 1 million people, is heavy periferical (almost in Slovenia) and is almost all mountainous, but the region produce about the double of calabrese GDP (a region with 3 million people, natural gas and also a little oil wells)

[Wolf]

Friuli has 1 million people, is heavy periferical (almost in Slovenia) and is almost all mountainous, but the region produce about the double of calabrese GDP (a region with 3 million people, natural gas and also a little oil wells)

But Friuli is also nearer to Austria, Germany and Switzerland, while Calabria is nearer to Greece and Albania.

[ABest]

As other members have pointed out, the two regions have experienced different histories. While the North joined the industrialization movement, the South remained more traditional because it was part of a different cultural sphere.

Consequently, Southerners have been an economical burden for the much more productive North. Also, this is what sparked the migrations from the South to the North.