Corrado Bonifazi

Long-term trends of internal migration in Italy

This study reviews trends in interprovincial migration in Italy over the last 40 years, with reference to the mobility transition model. The overall intensity of interprovincial migration declined significantly in the mid-1970s. Subsequently there has been a slow decline, and at the beginning of the 1990s interprovincial mobility reached a level of about 10 moves per 1000 persons per year. This paper provides a description and interpretation of these migration patterns, using population register data at the provincial scale. The regional patterns of interprovincial migration were very pronounced in the 1950s and 1960s, and characterised by rural to urban and South to North migration. After more balanced geographical patterns in the mid-1970s, the demographic efficiency of interprovincial migrations indicates a rise in short-distance moves in the case of suburban migrations, and renewed South to North migrations. These changes in the regional patterns of interprovincial migration were closely related to the economic and social transformations in Italy since the 1950s. Special attention is given to the role of the metropolitan provinces: Rome, Milan, Naples and Turin. These provinces serve as centres of attraction and distribution of interprovincial migration flows, and the changes observed for these four provinces over the study period aid the understanding of the overall changes in the national migration system. Copyright

Testing the differential urbanisation model for Italy

The evolution of urban systems is playing a key role in the social and economic processes of developed societies. In Italy many stages of the urban transition are concentrated in the period following the Second World War. The contribution describes the evolution of the Italian urban system, considering different units of analysis and using data on population change as well as data on internal migration. The underlying notion is the concept of differential urbanisation formulated by Geyer and Kontuly. The process of urbanisation shows different patterns of evolution depending on the unit of analysis. Using the local labour market areas (LLMAs) the Italian urban system shows a clear pattern of population concentration from 1921 to 1971, and different stages of polarisation reversal in the following decades. The results show the importance of the underlying concepts in the analysis and interpretation of the urbanisation process.