The industrialization core of Ragusa in the context of Sicilian territorial planning

After the Second World War, the industrial development in Sicily was accompanied, within the context of Regional Constitution (1946), by the drafting of numerous plans and programs for economic development. In the first part of the essay, dealing with a period between the end of the 1940s and the middle of the 1970s, the role of Ragusa territory in some of these plans and programs is analyzed. In particular, the essay underlines as the new regional economic structure, planned in these years, devoted the attention to the industrial development of south-eastern coastal areas and to the increasing of the main urban areas. The potentials of industrial development in the Ragusa province, on the contrary, progressively became less strategic, despite the presence of oilfields, the exploitation of which began after 1953. In Ragusa was settled a regional industrial area and, after the emission, in 1957, of the law number 634, a Nucleus of Industrialization. The Plan of Nucleus of Industrialization, compiled in 1967, confirmed, in the field of industrial development, the marginalization of Ragusa compared to Catania and Syracuse. At the same time, the Plan pointed out some regulations for economic development in agricultural field. The study underlines that the improvement of agro-industrial production was an instruments to weather the crisis caused by the progressive decline of oil industry.

Keywords: Sicily Regional development plans Ragusa Oil industry Agro-industrial production chain

Franco Martinico, Il Nucleo di industrializzazione di Ragusa nel quadro della pianificazione territoriale siciliana in "STORIA URBANA " 130/2011, pp , DOI: 10.3280/SU20011-130004