Italy is like the Amazon basin, it’s disappearing. Every week, hectares of greenery are transformed into hectares of cement. A meadow is no longer a meadow. It’s a business. Every day what are appearing are earth shifters, second and third houses, and buildings that are never lived in. Whole areas are built on for no need, for no tenants. Cement kills tourism. It chops out jobs. It doesn’t create jobs. Cement is laundering the dirty money of the national mafias who are investing in bricks and mortar. In Milan, skyscrapers are going up when a third of the city is for sale or is searching for tenants to pay the rent. Expo 2015 is just cement. You can’t eat cement, but the politicians are eating on the back of cement, as are the local authorities and organised crime. That Italy is disappearing under a flow of cement, like Pompeii buried by a flow of lava, makes you feel compassion and anger. The towns should forbid the construction of every building that is not necessary and if appropriate, they should check up to see if there is already an existing building that could be restructured. We need to start a new industry, that of deconstructing buildings and sheds that are not occupied. With public money, our mayors must no longer build a single room unless it is to be used for a social purpose. Those of you reading this who are working with cement and those who are recyclers, listen to me, constructing is no longer a business, invest in renewable energy and in tourism.

Interview with Ferruccio Sansa and Marco Preve:

F. Sansa: "I am Ferruccio Sansa, a journalist with “Il Fatto Quotidiano”. Together with Marco Preve, of “La Repubblica”, and with other colleagues namely: Andrea Garibaldi of “Il Corriere della sera”, Antonio Massari of “ Il Fatto”, Giuseppe Salvagiulo of “La Stampa” - we have written a book called “La colata” {pouring out the cement}. It’s a book that talks about the enormous risk that Italy is subject to right now, the risk of being ruined forever by cement.

The urgent need to take sides
It’s a book that has taken us a year’s work. There have been 5 of us and the work has been really long and hard. We think that right now it’s the moment to write a book about cement in Italy, because the consequences of what is being decided, of what is being done will be paid for by all of us later on. Right now, at this very moment, we have to decide which side we want to support, whether we want to be “pro” or “contra” cement. Here, it’s not just a choice for environmentalists and chic radicals. On the contrary, that has nothing to do with it. This is an alibi used by those who want to construct. It’s a choice that has a profound influence on our quality of life, our life and on the lives of our offspring, on our present existence and on our future. Quality of life means “how we live” whether we live well or not. Italy has decided, unfortunately to concentrate its energy into cement and asphalt and the consequences of this choice will be really serious: because it’s a choice, as we demonstrate in this book, with all the relevant figures, that is absolutely uneconomic. It creates damage that cannot be undone. Damage to one of the main industries of our country, namely tourism. Construction creates jobs that last only a short time and that are for low skilled workers. So don’t be taken in. Construction has few advantages. Furthermore, it’s an animal that eats itself, because Italy has its main wealth in beauty. If we ruin the beauty, we lose jobs in tourism, we lose jobs in so many ambits of our economy that survive thanks to the beauty of Italy.