La povertà a Milano. Distribuzione territoriale servizi sociali e problema abitativo

Even if Milan claims a general wellbeing, poverty does not affect a restricted number of people, experiencing a serious situation of social distress or whose special conditions have activate a process of social exclusion. Poverty, as outlined in the research work, appears more and more as a ¿structural¿ phenomenon. Ongoing demographic changes, transformations in life styles, new ways of being family, the increase number of foreign families and minors, post-industrial changes in the Lombard productive system and labour market, the subsequent diffusion of atypical labour contracts and the progressive flexibility of the labour market are all typical elements shared by those categories at risk of social exclusion. The work of mapping neighbourhoods according to the different social distress indicators represents the innovative aspect of the research. Maps clearly shows that in Milan there are no real ghetto neighbourhoods characterized by a uniformly poor population, but it also reveals the existence of more peripheral areas of the city experiencing serious conditions of social discomfort.