Urban Restoration and Renewal...and excellent pesto!... in Genoa

Last weekend, my Italian Urban Studies class took a field trip to Genoa in the Liguria Region, north of La Spezia and Cinque Terre. Genoa is known to have the biggest historical center in Italy. Visiting Genoa was like visiting a neglected city. It was once a grand metropolis, extending over modern Liguria, Piedmont, Sardinia, Corsica. After the Crusades, Genoa even obtained colonies in the Middle East, Sicily, and North Africa. Venice and Genoa, the two major port cities, were always competing. Throughout the 15 and 16th century Genoa was financing Spanish voyages to America. By the 1700's it was the financial capital of the World. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the industrial triangle - between Milan, Torino and Genoa - industrialized the city. The city abandoned its aesthetic beauty and became and industrial, port city. By the 1980s, the port city faced great problems of prostitution and poor immigration. The purpose of our trip was to see the improvements made by Renzo Piano who redeveloped the Porto Antico or old harbor in the 1990s-2000s. He restored the historical building and created landmarks like the Piazza del Mare, Aquarium of Genoa, the Bigo, and the Bolla or Sphere. What caused this sudden attempt at urban renovation?  The Celebration of Christopher Columbus in 1992, the G8 Conference in 2001, and then the naming of Genoa as the European Culture Capital of the Year in 2004, to promote tourism, all forced a rapid revamp of the city. It catalyzed the renewal movement that would bring thousands of tourists and restore Genovese people's civic pride. 

It was an interesting experience to say the least. I think it is definitely a city worth visiting if you are in Northern Italy as it is a city with enormous potential for development. I do not think I would go back anytime soon but I would love to see the improvement of this once wealthy city and capital of Italy. It was like a whole city surrounding South Street Seaport in NYC before its' renovation. It is the largest medieval city in Italy with a labyrinth of the tiny streets, called Caruggi, making it very easy to get lost. On our tour, we saw the beautiful Piazza De Ferrari, Cathedral of Genoa, and went down the infamous Via Garibaldi (formerly known as Strada Nuova) which is on the World Heritage List of UNESCO. It is known for its beautiful, ancient banks turned palaces that line the entire street. We had a delicious traditional Genovese lunch at Locanda Spinola, an authentic Genovese restaurant we stumbled upon. We all had Taglietti (some sort of thick square pasta only made in the southern Liguria region of Italy) with potatoes and string beans in pesto sauce, we toured the city some more and went to the aquarium! It's the second largest in Europe and Genoa's main tourist attraction. After the aquarium, we went down Via del Campo, a famous street with many songs written about it. It was red-light district and is now an area of poverty filled with poor immigrants. Contemporary Genoa is a good example of a process of renovation and re-invention that in the last decades has touched many European cities such as Barcelona.  Many European cities in the post-industrial Europe have operated to recuperate their neglected cities. Overall, the trip gave us a glimpse of an Italian city that is trying hard at urban renovation and restoration. I think Genoa has a lot of potential and I hope that the Italian government will continue to revive this once great Medieval city