Stratification of immigration landscape. A case study on the outskirts of Milan

Italy has always been a crossroads of migratory flows, favored by its climate and central position in the Mediterranean area that have facilitated accessibility. After the unification of the national state, and particularly in the last quarter of the 19th century, demographic pressure and scarcity of resources delayed economic development and triggered considerable emigration flows. Millions of Italians left their country from 1875 to the First World War (General Commissariat of Emigration, 1926). Since the first postwar period, the demographic policies of the fascist regime discouraged emigration, while the industrial development of the country generated internal movements, especially from the South and the northeastern regions, directed towards the capital of the kingdom and the northwestern “industrial triangle”. The flows started again after the Second World War until the end of the economic boom, then began to slow down, but their traces on the landscape in the destination regions were remarkable, particularly in the urban suburbs, which often developed in a disorderly way to provide housing to immigrants. The literature on this topic is enormous: among the milestones of the research on Italian emigration to abroad are the numerous papers presented at the XXVI Italian Geographic Congress held in Genoa in 1992 (Cerreti, 1996). The literature on this topic is enormous: among the milestones of research on Italian emigration, we recall the numerous papers presented during the XXVI Italian Geographic Congress held in Genoa in 1992 (Cerreti, 1996). As regards Italian internal mobility, among the numerous researches published in the same years with historical retrospective purposes, we mention the one edited by Arru and Ramella in 2003. Finally, a good work on contemporary movements is the one published by Colucci and Gallo (2015).