Rural Renewal in Southern Italy

Abstract

Southern Italy, which comprises the region below a line extending from Rome to Ascoli Piceno and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, has a character different from the rest of the country. It encompasses 130,000 square kilometres, which constitute 43% of the toal area of the country, and has 19 million people, or 37% of the total population of Italy. As a whole, this is a depressed area whose economic and social backwardness is evidenced by the fact that the average per capita income (111,000 lire in 1951 and 288,000 lire in 1965) is about half of that found in the rest of Italy.