Quote:
Originally Posted by GaborFrankl
Ciao,
Hello EVERYBODY!
This is my very FIRST post on this website, though I`m a visitor for many months... I love this superb website! While it`s an exaggeration that I know the city (I`ve been there twice in 2004 and 2007 for short periods), I know the most imprtant monuments and historical buldings, let alone the fact that in Shakespeare`s Rome and Juliet`s final scene is situated in Mantova! Anyway, it`s one of my favourite cities in northern Italy, the surrounding waters of the Mincio makes it a fabulous place. It`s a typical prosperous northern Italian provincial city, isn`t it? I`ve heard that the local big petrochemical firms/plants have had serious financial problems in the future, putting many workplaces at risk so much so that the shutting of the majority of the plants were considered - I`ve read this a few years ago about the Mantova-located oil-gas works there? Is the situation reversed now or worse?
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Hi,
well, the oil refinery lives on, I guess they've made quite a lot of money last year even if it's a totally different story today. They are part of the ring of steam generators around the city so e need them for heating anyway...the chemical plant has gone through major changes and the most polluting operations have been shut more than a decade now, hand have been replaced by major power plants.
I can't recall a job crisis in the area...even when a huge engineering company went bust and shed more than 1.000 jobs, the local economy provided other opportunities to vietually all with little use of welfare money. Well maybe the older guys were paid an early retirement.
Smallish, but no so provincial in the end. The whole area is amde of tightly connected cities and Milan is just 100 miles away...it's a bit like living in the northern rim of the London area. Sort of.
Thanks for visiting