Page 47 - Changing Living Spaces

The Privatization of the Common Real Estate in Lombard Alpine Valleys

and resist the negative economic conjuncture (sometimes by over-ex-
ploiting their workforce, represented by members of the artisan family)
played a fundamental role. The strategic decision of the richest families
to divide the firewood and charcoal between the iron and brass manufac-
turers and the villagers, giving priority to the needs of the workshops, al-
lowed the latter to keep the prices of the raw materials they used low and
to obtain competitive final prices. During the twentieth century, some
Alpine villages specialized their production and strengthened their po-
sition on the lowland market (and later on the international market); a
great attention to the improvement of know-how and a production or-
ganization that privileged the employment of family members allowed
the workshops to develop into small and medium factories. In a context
where many Alpine villages greatly reduced their population and were ex-
cluded from the Italian industrial development, some villages resisted
and became competitive industrial districts.13
It is important to note that the privatization of common real estate
represented only one of the factors explaining the demographic decline of
the Alpine valleys, while the privatization of forests was the cause of new
environmental damage. The frequency and the negative effects of land-
slides and floods increased, causing considerable economic losses in some
Alpine villages. Faced with severe damage to their houses and/or work-
shops, the inhabitants definitively decided to emigrate, as had happened
before to the poorest families. The skills of the artisans were obviously
powerless in the face of the forces of nature that destroyed buildings and
cultivated plots of land (e.g. Rohr 2020).
Finally, it is interesting to note that the decline of common real estate
ownership also took place in other Alpine areas of northern Italy, such as
Piedmont and Veneto; the economic and demographic effects were even
more severe than in Lombardy. In Piedmont, the strong demographic de-
cline was favoured by the absence of low valleys, that is, most of the villag-
es were far from the lowland markets and lost a high percentage of their
inhabitants. Moreover, many factories producing iron products left the
valleys, preferring the Ligurian coast. Finally, the steeper slopes caused

13 About the industrial development in the Lombard Alpine valleys, see: Mocarelli,
Ongaro and Tedeschi, (2021), Trezzi (2015), Marchesi (2003), Besana (2003), Te-
deschi (2001), Mocarelli (1997), Colli (1997), and R. Merzario (1989). See also M.
Romano (2012) and Conca Messina (2022).

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