Arco latino: A model of European resilience

Abstract

The cities of the Mediterranean basin are treasure chests of stories, memories and symbols: they are the essential nodes of communication and migratory currents between populations. Western culture took birth from the traditional city, the centre point of all the contaminations and all trade networks. Ports and cities are historically strongly linked, although some markedly different relationships exist between them. The strength of these links depends on local and global circumstances, and peculiar local challenges. Authors focus on the Mediterranean dimension of European coastal cities, and in particular on those of the so-called Arco Latino, as representatives of an exported and exportable model of city, with typical recognizable characteristics that are capable to define the identity of places. Arco Latino is a complex system in which socio-cultural, economic and ecological environments are dynamically interrelated. In particular, the paper aims to describe the main resilient features and peculiarities of “port cities” and “cities with port” in the Arco Latino area, resilience being meant as the ability to absorb, adapt to and/or rapidly recover from internal and/or external stresses due to the continuous change in citizens’ needs and/or from potential disruptive events.