'Smart City' Projects to rebuild Quake-Struck Italian Town
Three years after a quake devastated L'Aquila, the Italian town launched a bid to become a hi-tech European city -- to the skepticism of thousands of people still living in temporary housing.
Large parts of the center remain boarded up even as local architects work with the council on a "Smart City" project to rebuild using cutting-edge techniques that has the backing of Prime Minister Mario Monti's government.
"The idea is to turn the tragedy of the earthquake into an opportunity to rebuild in an intelligent, innovative way while preserving the city's heritage," Alfredo Moroni, the town councilor overseeing the project told AFP.
It is an ambitious aim in a town still traumatized as it prepares to mark the third anniversary on Friday of a tragedy that claimed 308 lives.
The "Smart City" project includes plans for a pedestrianized city-center with bike sharing schemes, buildings fitted with solar panels and a facility to allow local inhabitants to consult their doctor via video link.
But with 170 hectares (420 acres) of the center standing empty, dotted with makeshift shrines to the victims of the earthquake, there is widespread disbelief among locals that a plan to modernize L'Aquila will ever be enacted.
Nearly a quarter of L'Aquila's pre-earthquake population of 75,000 is still living in wooden houses, hotels, army barracks and new builds in remote areas with no public services. Thousands more have moved away altogether.
Only four families have moved back into the city center, officials said.
Billionaire Berlusconi's downfall last November and his replacement by reform-minded Monti has given momentum to the "Smart City" idea, which has its roots in a project drawn up by a group of young local architects.
As stray dogs wander through the maze of alleyways and abandoned buildings with gaping holes in their sides, architect Marco Morante explains their plan.
"Just after the earthquake we formed a group called Collettivo 99 and argued that the city could be restored and transformed using renewable energy sources, anti-earthquake systems, the Internet," said Morante, the group's head.
"We wanted to create the West's first technologically 'smart' mediaeval city, but no-one listened. We now need to move fast or we risk no-one wanting to return in years to come to a city they no longer feel is their own," he said.
"With Monti's government, we finally have the chance to be heard," he added.
In Bazzano, a suburb of L'Aquila hit hard by the quake, residents living in temporary housing a stone's throw from their rubble-strewn houses welcome the plan but warn of growing social unease and a lack of trust in the authorities.
There is also widespread skepticism among residents that the region can find the money for the project amid a biting financial crisis in Italy and Europe.
Despite misgivings, some inhabitants say the plan is their only hope of reviving the city.
Source: Agence France Presse
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