LIBRI DI ADA BECCHI

The object of the essay are the events concerning the mobilization of the working class and the action of the labor unions for the renewal of the national collective contract of the metal workers in 1969 and its aftermath. It is based on a direct experience of the author (acting as a union officer at that time) and analyses the relations among the workers’ struggles, the student movement and the birth of political groups of the radical left. The analysis takes into account also the reactions of particular State bodies, who organized a series of bloody attacks, while the violence of terrorist groups started spreading out. After the renewal of the contract, the workers movement fought for several years in order to improve and strengthen its achievements. Those years have been years of great social progress but the results gained by the workers have met great resistance by the entrepreneurial counterpart and by the political parties.

Consumer City Today. Globalization changed the specialisation of many cities, and their hierarchy. Only few cities became global cities, i.e. location of functions capable to drive the world economy. The American literature defines the global city (New York at first) as a consumer city, and lookes at this specialisation for the future growth. But the process that involves many European (and specially Italian- because of the extraordinary availability of cultural goods) cities, seems to be different in its consequences, with a general trend to the worsening of the urban life quality. For our cities there is more than a reason to recall the message of Jane Jacobs, in her more important book.