Il Veneto. Raccontare la città diffusa

The history of Veneto in the second half of 20th century is a history of great and sudden social transformations. The first one happens because of the economic boom that began in the 1970s, later than in other areas of Italy. The boom has led to a progressive consumption of the territory which has strongly changed the landscape towards a urban sprawl. Andrea Zanzotto denounces this situation already in 1970. In the 2000s, many writers denounced the erosion of the territory by unscrupulous businessmen and corrupt politicians. In these years, the most interesting works are novel rather than essays. In particular I quindicimila passi by Vitaliano Trevisan tells this situation by focusing on an unstable and highly effective character, who dreams of the Amazon in the suburbs of Vicenza. Cartongesso by Francesco Maino, published in 2014, takes the complaint to the extreme, because the author builds a very long invective against the Venetian people. But it is only in 2015, when Romolo Bugaro publishes Effetto domino, that the second major change in the Veneto region, due to the economic crisis, is represented: the building contractors who devastate the area are now defeated.