From ‘Delayed to Slow: Cities in Southern Europe (Italy and Iberia) from the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850-2000

The chapter provides keys to reading the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, later, the post-industrial and digital trends in southern Europe, together with some data on urbanisation and industrialisation, focussing in particular Iberian and Italian cities in comparative perspective. This approach is explained with reference to the first emergence of industrialisation (the context of its ‘delay’) and to the recent emergence of the ‘slow cities’ phenomenon. An overview of the development of three urban areas, Barcelona, Porto, and Turin, creates a more specific analytical framework and promotes a comparative perspective. The chapter proposes the need to rethink the approach to industrialisation as a generalised turning-point in terms of change and all-round urban modernisation, consequently, considering aspects of ‘delay’ with respect to different dynamics. It identifies a ‘southernisation’ of Mediterranean Europe that has created cultural as well as economic patterns as a form of marginalisation. The irresistible emergence of cultural heritage related to cities and small towns redefines the role of southern Europe in the new networks of European cities. The paper sees in this search for other rhythms and meanings of development a change connected to the awareness matured in the post-industrial world and, therefore, the need also for a paradigm shift in urban history. To this end, this setting, provided for fragments, although incomplete, offers some entry points on breaks and continuities, aspects of change, urban space special characterisations, and historiographic interpretations.