Frequently Asked Question #18:
Q: I'm looking to improve my quality of life - will I find this in Piedmont?
A: According to the pioneering ecologist Garrett Hardin, the quality of life and the quantity of it are inversely related. Anyone who has grown up in a rising tide of asphalt and concrete, or just been stuck for hours in a traffic jam, will recognise the truth in this. But could this just be one of the keys to La Dolce Vita? Well, take a careful look at this table:
Country or area/
Year Total Population Change
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WORLD
1976 4,159,142,342
1999 6,001,998,609 +44.3%
NORTHERN AMERICA
1976 241,662,106
1999 310,377,288 +28.4%
WESTERN EUROPE
1976 362,103,409
1999 389,123,526 +7.5%
ITALY
1976 55,838,536
1999 57,603,634 +3.2%
PIEDMONT
1976 4,542,800
1999 4,287,500 -5.6%
---------------- -------------------- -------
Sources:
1. U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base.
2. University of Utrecht, Holland, Population Statistics.
Italy has one of the lowest population growth rates in the world: if it were not for net migration into the country, the population would already be shrinking. Even with migration, the Italian population is expected to decline to about 50 Million by the year 2050: this is due to the extraordinarily low Italian fertility rate of 1.2 children per woman, which is very nearly a record - there are few countries in the world where women have fewer children.
In most parts of Italy the population is still increasing, albeit modestly - but in a few regions it is already declining. Among this latter group, the populations in the north-western regions of Piedmont and Liguria are declining the fastest. This is not because these regions are unattractive places to live relative to the rest of the country, far from it - the reason is that their better-educated female populations have greater access to contraception. Some commentators reckon, more controversially, that the educated Italian woman's low fertility is her revenge upon a traditional Catholic patriarchy.
Whatever the cause, the effects of this demographic transformation in Piedmont are both striking and subtle. Unpleasantness and incivility, the litmus indicators of overpopulation in much of the western world, appear to have passed Piedmont by. In Piedmont you get the all-pervading sense - hard to pin down, but definite nevertheless - that all the negative developments of the last half-century have simply failed to take root.
So La Dolce Vita is alive and well - and in Piedmont, at least, it has a sustainable future.
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