Economic Dev.- Italy and Poverty.

In my last posts about the GDP of Italy throughout the years, there is still some issues related to poverty in Italy. “ In the first nine months of 2012, the proportion of families in debt almost trebled from 2.3 percent to almost 6.5 percent, according to the study.” Some of these 7 millions of families are now looking at their family savings just to have a standard living. Inequality from the class systems has risen with a 5.6 increase income on the wealthy while the poor do not get anything! Data from “Istat showed the Italian economy shrank 2.4 percent in 2012 and 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter of the year from the previous quarter. The data confirmed an earlier estimate that showed the recession in the eurozone's third largest economy deepening.” I guess it will going more of a plateau line for the year 2011-2013.

Source: http://libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.csun.edu/docview/1315754310?accountid=7285

Geopolitical Framework- Italy- colonialism

Italy, having big history on taking over lands and expanding their empire. Italy had some colonies until the Second War World happened and lost some. Here are some of the countries that Italy colonized before:



Italian East Africa : The Italian army went to Ethiopia in 1869 for the first time, but the Italian Empire in Ethiopia started in 1935, when Mussolini attacked and won.



Libya: The Italian occupation in Libya started in 1911 and lasted until the Second World War, even if it was often fought by the local population.

Colonial Police and Police of Italian Africa (P.A.I.): After the end of the war in Ethiopia in 1937, the Corps of "Polizia Coloniale" (Colonial Police) was created to take the role of the police in the colonies in Africa (Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia) and it started issueing its own license plates in Mach 1938.

Rhodes: The island of Rhodes, the main of the archipelago of Dodecaneso, became the headquarters of the Order of Knights of St. John from the beginning of the 14th century and had two centuries of great splendour until 1522, when the Turkishes invaded it and the Knights had to escape to Malta, becoming the well-known Knights of Malta. In 1912 Rhodes was taken by Italy that was already fighting with Turkey in Libya and it was Italian until the end of the Second World War.

Slovenia: At the beginning of the Second World War Slovenia, that was in Yugoslavia, was split in two parts: the northern went under the control of Germany, while the southern became Italian. Just at the end of the war Slovenia was reunified and taken again by Yugoslavia. Anyway, although the Italian control in this country was very short and lasted just few years (1941-1943) during the war.

Somalia (A.F.I.S.): After the Second World War, from 1950, the Italian part of Somalia was entrusted again to Italy, under the control of a trust administration.

Albania: Italy took possession of Albania in 1939 and kept it until 1944.

Tientsin (China): Tientsin is a town in the north-east of China and it's a quite important center for international trade and business. But it was important also in the past and between 1858 and 1860 the first concessions were taken by England, France, America and Russia and later in 1900 those of Italy and Japan were added and they all were kept until the second world war.

Source: http://www.targheitaliane.it/index.html?/italy/colonie/menu.html

Geopolitical Framework- Centrifugal in Italy

In spring 2010, Italy were celebrating their 150th Anniversary of it Unification. This article states that some of the citizens in Italy, “I am a FLORENTINE”, “A Tuscan? With Difficulty. An Italian? Never!”. And here I thought I of myself wanting to be “Californian” as if it is its own nation-state, but of course I am kidding around. “Two polls published this week found 10-11% of Italians thought the unification of their country was a mistake,’ describes the article, while other polls wanted to for the south and north of Italy to separate. We have to remember that this is only about 1/10 from the whole population of Italy (61 million+), so 80 percent of the rest of the citizens are happy with what they have now and their country being unified. The article then talks about boycotts for 2011 festive. (Which may or may not already happened).



“Against this background it is perhaps not surprising that the arrangements for next year's festivities have encountered difficulties. The chairman of the oversight committee, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a former president of Italy, has resigned (ostensibly for health reasons), and two ministers in Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition--both of them from the Northern League, including the party's leader, Umberto Bossi--say they may boycott the celebrations.”


Source: http://go.galegroup.com.libproxy.csun.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA226592747&v=2.1&u=csunorthridge&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w

  

or  http://www.economist.com/node/16116899

Geopolitical Framework- Timeline of Unification of Italy.

“As Napoleon's reign began to fail, other national monarchs he had installed tried to keep their thrones by feeding nationalistic sentiments, setting the stage for the revolutions to come. “ So over time, Italy were a bunch of City-States, until it was unified into a Nation-State (a relatively homogenous cultural group with its own fully independent political territory) in 1861.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_unification

Image Source.(Made it go slower for viewing purposes) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Italian-unification.gif

Aqueducts! (Environmental Geography)

Italy still uses thousands year old aqueducts!
"Bridges for conveying water, called aqueducts or water bridges are constructed to convey watercourses across gaps such as valleys or ravines. The term aqueduct may also be used to refer to the entire watercourse, as well as the bridge."






--It pretty much carried water in a canal form. It was used around the Roman Empire, and allowed water to be available nearly everywhere their Empire stretched. What kept the water moving was the angles of the aqueducts.

"The word is derived from the Latin aqua ("water") and ducere ("to lead").".

Really amazing how the Romans calculated this kind of mechanism that helped transport water. We have pipes now, we definitely developed that kind of idea because of the aqueducts!

Here is a video that gives a demonstration of how an aqueduct works!

The Changing Italy Envirnoment (Environmental Geography)

"With its hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters, Italy experiences a Mediterranean climate." [Sounds like awesome weather to me, I mean they can grow a lot of things!]

"

• Altitude, distance from the sea and aspect give local weather variations
• Winters are cold in the mountains
• The coasts are kept warm by the sea
• Winters from northern Europe spread south into Italy, bring snow to most mountains
• In summer, hot weather from Africa moves north to the whole country

"Italy is a country of extremely varied landscapes and consequently experiences a similarly varied climate. Between the north and south there can be a considerable difference in temperature, particularly during the winter. In Milan it could be −2°C (28.4 F) and snowing, while at the same time 8°C (46.4 F) in Rome and 20°C (68 F) in Palermo. The differences are less extreme in the summer."

Here how the weather is in January. 

Here how the weather is in July.

Sources. "KLB School Geography: Italy - Climate." KLB School Geography: Italy - Climate. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.




"Italian Climate, Average Temperatures, Rainfall, Hours of Sunshine, Regional Climate Italy, Weather Forecasts Italy, Climate Variations Italy." Italian Climate, Average Temperatures, Rainfall, Hours of Sunshine, Regional Climate Italy, Weather Forecasts Italy, Climate Variations Italy. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2013.

Images Use: http://www.klbict.co.uk/interactive/geography/italy/jultemp.jpg

http://www.klbict.co.uk/interactive/geography/italy/jantemp.jpg

Dimension and Location (Environmental Geography)

Internet source:http://www.climate-zone.com/climate/italy/

Image Source: http://www.mapsofworld.com/lat_long/italy-lat-long.html#