Clerici, M.A. Employment Trends in Northern Italy’s Medium-Sized Cities from 2012 to the Shock of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Group of Cities in Distress? Urban Sci.2023, 7, 118.
Clerici, M.A. Employment Trends in Northern Italy’s Medium-Sized Cities from 2012 to the Shock of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Group of Cities in Distress? Urban Sci. 2023, 7, 118.
Clerici, M.A. Employment Trends in Northern Italy’s Medium-Sized Cities from 2012 to the Shock of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Group of Cities in Distress? Urban Sci.2023, 7, 118.
Clerici, M.A. Employment Trends in Northern Italy’s Medium-Sized Cities from 2012 to the Shock of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Group of Cities in Distress? Urban Sci. 2023, 7, 118.
Abstract
In a globalised economy, metropolises seem to have an ‘extra gear’ compared to other urban centres: they attract the most skilled businesses, drive innovation in many fields and can count on material and immaterial assets that foster greater resilience to adverse events of various kinds. Against this backdrop, what lies ahead for medium-sized cities (MSCs)? This paper focuses on the case of Northern Italy and explores employment trends between 2012 and 2020 in 189 MSCs with a population of between 20,000 and 200,000 inhabitants. Using a descriptive approach, we investigate the evolutionary trajectories of these cities and their varying specialisations, over a period marked by a moderate recovery of the Italian economy following the Great Recession and by a further setback caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, in terms of employment performance, the 189 cities in question were less dynamic than the metropolises, but it is nevertheless necessary to look at their individual circumstances in detail. Furthermore, the work shows significant differences between the MSCSs of the North-West and North-East in evolutionary trajectories and specialisation profiles. The most problematic situations also relate to cities with hub status in the wider context and are not focused only where there is a production structure linked to industry.
Keywords
medium-sized cities; employment; production specialisation; COVID-19; Northern Italy.
Subject
Social Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
