Urban transformations from post war years to the 1990s, both socio-morphological and cultural, have made Milano a city organised in mono-functionalistic areas and have brought to the constitution of a "modern and post-Tayloristic" mass consumer society. These changes have created the conditions for the birth of the district of Navigli.

The principles of accessibility (the distribution of urban resources encourages those activities able to pay for the opportunity of accessibility to the centre, to the information, to the potential market) and of agglomeration (growing advantages of scale), according to Camagni theory, has organized the city; on the one hand marginalizing the outskirts from the centre and on the other hand creating in the centre many other specialised areas (financial, commercial, fashion, leisure, sport, university, high class residence areas).

Our analysis for Milan shows the marginalizing of the outskirts regarding the distribution of all the structures for leisure (cinemas, theatres, and museums), and particularly bars and restaurants. Here the imbalance is clear, places like Brera or Navigli in which there are 17 pubs and restaurants for 1000 habitants, and places like Baggio and Lorenteggio in which the same ratio goes down to 1:23 (see figure 1).

Figure 1 Distribution of Bars in Milan.

The trend to concentrate this typology of commercial concerns in 'restricted' central areas seems still to be under way. Next to the traditional 'lieux magiques' of Milanese leisure (Navigli, Brera, Buenos-Aires, Vittorio Emanuele), other leisure areas such Central station, Ticinese and Moscova are developing.

Recent urban transformations - that according to Martinotti have brought to the formation of a second generation metropolis, which includes the habitants living out of the city but linked to it for work or leisure - have obliged us to review the concept of the outskirts, which are becoming complex, different and sometimes competitive (Della Pergola). But at least initially, have reinforced the organisation of the city into mono-functionalistic areas within the historical centre of Milan. In fact these changes extend the market of the specialized zones to the new metropolitan population, like the city-users, business men and women who are urban consumers not residents (5 million every year in Milan). These create induced tourism that is economically desirable. It is not by accident that our survey indicates that 60% of the Navigli consumers comes from outside Milan.

Pleasant and popular old areas, once populated by marginal people, have become with the pressure of the consumer's needs, commercial areas with medium-high class residents. The Ticinese-Navigli area from 1971 to 1991 lost 30.8% of workers, while gaining 12.5% of entrepreneurs and self-employed people. It is possible that the impact of consumers will grow, influencing the functionality of the area. At the same time this transformation of the Navigli area has caused a growth in urban conflict and a loss in the political interest of the inhabitants. Before the integration among residents, city-users and leisure's organisers were strong. It was usual to find in a private yard and a place for dancing or playing bowls. Now that the old social tissue has been expelled in favour of the trendy pubs, this has caused conflict between residents and tradespeople.

On the other hand, the modern mass consumer society generates a process, which after the loss of social points of reference linking humans to both the place of work and to the community relationship, the mass-person is born. The 'jobs' do not give identity and sociality, therefore consumers try to compensate by substituting leisure for it. But the industry of leisure aims at taking possession and ruling this 'free' leisure time making it equivalent to working time, with the means of fashion, contributing to the diffusion of hetero-directed behaviours.

The hetero-directed behaviour is characterised by a low attitude to initiative, responsibility and creativity. These deficiencies are encouraged by a system in which "time tends to loose its quality of resource and becomes more and more a product instead of a factor of production" (Savelli 1984).

Hetero-directed people are motivated by the needs of sociality, escapism and their expression for consumer leisure as well as sharing with others the same anxiety, anomy and isolation generated by modern society. However, the difference is that hetero-directed motivations are experienced in an artificial context, created and managed by institutions.

"Institutions manipulate man through desires with an action that takes a coercive dimension. The phenomenon we are interested in is the intentional expropriation of motivations, degradation of individual patterns and their substitution with collective proposals and patterns, set up by the industry of leisure." (Riesman 1990).

The hetero-directed tends to confuse working time and leisure time, until they become unrecognisable.

The characteristics and the needs induced by the society in which we live, concerns both the entrepreneurs and the consumers of the district. A common vision of interests emerges, so that the consumers share some points of the "district culture" peculiar to the entrepreneurs:

1. The same need of sociality and defence or affirmation of their own personality, denied by the working world;
2. The importance of leisure dimension, both like profession and like object of consumption to give back loss of identities;
3. A certain satisfaction for the typologies of the bars and restaurants as they are.

In Milan there is almost nothing except the traditional areas for leisure like the Navigli or Brera and this is an explanation of their continuous success. In the last few years some new places responding to the needs of auto-directed consumers have opened, such as alternative pubs that copy community centres or those, that are going to commercialise and institutionalise themselves, like their Swiss and Dutch colleagues.1

Those new kind of demands and supplies testifies the complexity of the behaviour and consumption's models and the large range of possibilities. This permits the formation of subcultures and ways of not being conventional near to the tendency "to make euphorically assimilated to an ideal medium man the most different contents" (Morin 1963). However this phenomenon is only in the beginning phase and involves a minority of consumers who momentarily do not have the force to condition the supply.

The History of the Leisure District and of its Innovative Elements.

"Isn't it true that every suburb catches up its climax just a little before the end of its construction? After this its planet describes a curve, becomes close to the trading (...). Until the street is new enough, belongs to common people and get free of them until fashion starts smiling at her. Then, no matter how much it costs, the interested fight for having buildings and flats. (...) They start to reduce the yards, some of them are eliminated too, until when a New years day comes in which it is in bad taste having such an address on a visiting card. Most of the habitants in fact are shoppers" Lefeuve (1873).

"La mode est la recerche toujour vaine, souvent ridicule, parfois dangereuse, d'une beautè superieure ideale." (Balzac)

"In Paris, in 1757, there were just three cafés".

At the moment the Ticinese district is seen as the leading actor. It is a suburb with a historically popular and extra-legal composition (it was called "the kasbah"). Ticinese is traditionally a leisure district: the tradition of Milanese pubs is high and related to the history of the Darsena, the second port of Italy until the 1920s after the port of Genoa. The incubation area of the district was situated between XXIV Palace and the San Lorenzo columns and in fact in the beginning of 1970s, some members of Lotta Continua, an extra-parliamentarian group, bought some bars in the district transforming them into modern bars for evening use. The press called these bars "Le Operette", a name borrowed from the first bar born in the district: "L'Osteria dell'Operetta" to be precise. Following 'The Operette's' example, other members of the parliament left and bought up many bars at low prices in the Navigli district. A political-cultural element was added to the popular aspect of the old pubs. It was a time of complex transformation of the old pubs into the modern where political discussions, began in political seats, lasting until dawn. In a district that until the late 1970s was the area for the major concentration of political seats in Europe.

The second period began, between the years of 1979 to 1982 (see figure 2)2, brought to the birth and new development the modern district of leisure. This history is connected to the end of the season of political engagement and with the grafting of the spiral of terrorist violence. In fact with the demobilisation of the left movement in the 1970s, there was a progressive and exponential growth of bars and restaurants in the Navigli district. Many of the leaders of Lotta Continua, Avanguardia Operaia, Movimento Lavoratori per il Socialismo recycled themselves into para-cultural sectors, transforming themselves into entrepreneurs of 'leisure'. We can see this recycling as a commercial continuum in the way of doing politics in the 1970s. In fact many of these bars have continued to be the reference point for informal social gatherings, selling with the beer a special product: "The lost feeling of political seats". Becoming entrepreneurs, these people were able to interpret changes in act, and to find the elements of innovation and of profitability. They reacted to the socio-political change using it as an opportunity to introduce new styles of life and for free time use.

These three dimensions were tightly linked to the ones below and it is possible to identify the connection between them:

1. The importance of consumption and styles of life linked to the search of the definition of the identity in free time,

2. The shift of the demographic gravity centred towards the young people,

3. The change of values: necessity for self-expression, hedonism, and absolute freedom of expression in longer leisure hours and clothes, also wanting informal environments for live music, commanding a low price social lifestyle.

4. The retirement after the political season of engagement during the 1970s and the necessity for new spaces and forms of aggregations for the coming of the "sweet nothing" season of the 1980s.

• A concentration of almost 100 bars and restaurants in few streets, increased by 500 per cent in twenty years;

• Presence of valorisation economies due to the historical and architectonic appeal of the area;

• Importance of urbanisation economies (great potential of city's market);

• Birth in the 1990s of stronger barriers to entry to the market as well as of two Associations of categories;

• Organisation of the district based on Informal economic mechanisms such as family and friendship relations or "moonlighting";

The district of leisure: day and night images

Aesthetical and Functional Typology of Bars and Restaurants: The Navigli Appeal.

"Fashion is helpful for trading but not for societies, creativity and mind" (Fraser Kennedy)

• The presence of many typical navigli houses of the XVIII and XIX centuries called case di ringhiera (railing houses)
• The artificial canals from the 1200's with the sluices by Leonardo da Vinci and the old bridges made of iron and steel
• Rustic ancient wash houses made of stone and wood
• Suggestive out-of-the-way-bits and important monuments such as S. Cristoforo's church.

• Long and narrow pubs

• Most has one-room only

• A limited number of doors or windows on the streets (2-3).

Bars and restaurants are not very different from each other but represent a variation on the same theme (same lists, same insignia, same sponsors for the sunshades that in summer cover the sidewalks).

To "classify" aesthetically, bars and restaurants, we utilised classic categories the modern3, the old style milanese pub and the period furniture4. The old milanese pub doesn't exist anymore, so we have created two under-categories, from the intersection of modern style with the period style of old milanese pub, calling them artefact or cloned old milanese pub5 and mutant or contaminated old milanese pubs6. Weak categories that we are obliged to use because not one of the pubs has a real strong aesthetical and functional environment.

The conclusion is that while the mutated and cloned old Milanese pubs are dominant and the period pubs discretely present, modern styles are almost absent. Unfortunately modern styles are the one's more easily original and innovative.

Organizing Structure : Enterprise and Associations.

Around the Darsena, the Naviglio Grande and Pavese, there is a concentration of 89 small and medium sized enterprises specialised in recreation and "free time". However similar (for example in each of them eating is possible) the premises show variations on the theme of leisure supply. So there are Italian restaurants, ethnic, pizzerie, wine bars, bierkellers, old style pubs, disco-bars, karaoke and live music clubs. The percentage weight of the nightclubs with a specific function of restoration is 45%. Among the remaining 55% bars:

• 30% offer leisure supply not alimentary

Typology of Bars and Restaurants.

Geographically there's a strong presence of restaurants and old style pubs (osterie) on the Naviglio Grande and bierkellers and bars on the Naviglio Pavese that also has younger customers.

Entertainment Supply.7

All these mechanisms perfectly harmonise themselves with the little family enterprises, predominant in the district (49% of cases).

In these little dimension enterprises, family is important for the following reasons:

• It is convenient from a fiscal point of view because the commercial law by dividing the enterprise income amongst the entrepreneur's relatives, grants fiscal benefits and permits to the familiar enterprises to avoid bankruptcy;

• Supplies 'manpower' flexible and elastic to the changeable needs;

Family is often the first financial source that permits to open the pubs and can help in case of necessity.

The other original reciprocity mechanism operating in the district is that connected to friendship, often due to the common existential political pattern, that links some entrepreneurs among them and with a part of the customers. This implies: -that in some pubs, some customers don't pay or have special discounts; -some pubs were born like co-operative with informal shifts regarding vacation and working hours; - spontaneous collaborations and easy mobilisation in defence of their primary interests among the entrepreneurs who are friends

Enterprise Property.

The Entrepreneurs and the District Culture.

"What a litter!" From a group of seven friends came: two extra parliamentary groups, a manager, a prestigious lawer, a novelist and You. And the one? The man with the glasses. You didn't tell me his name…" (Montalban 1993).

"Once you were monkeys; even today the man is the "monkiest" of all the monkeys." (Nietzsche).

All of the entrepreneurs share a district culture, which approaches them to consumers. Constitutive elements of this humus (typical of the tradesmen) are:

• The charm of lifestyle linked to the leisure profession;
• Calvinistic working rhythms;
• Optimism about the future;
• A good image of their clubs;
• Constructive Criticism about Ticinese degradation, institution fugitiveness and the association's incapacities to ecological and cultural re-qualification;
• The same ideas for necessary operations to improve the district;
• The incapacity to really operate and innovate.

The innovation rate of entrepreneurs comes from an index, which shows not a really comfortable situation. 65% of trade shops has been found only on a sufficient level of score, while the remnant 35% is above it. This is to say that the measurement was very severe but such a severity is necessary for a town like Milan. Both the younger entrepreneurs and those who have just started their activities are more inclined towards change. It seems strange but the graduates are less inclined to innovation maybe because most of them belong to a class of entrepreneur imitators and semi-innovators.

We have created, thanks to a double entry table, an entrepreneurs typology based on differences.

	innovation I : high	innovation II : low
motivation I : fuga-autoexpression	Animated innovatory entrentrepreneurradical-chic styletype of clubs: jazz-club and osterias	Semi-imitator entrepreneurSpoilt-enjoyment styletype of clubs: karaoke-disco/bar-pubs in style
motivation II :profit-prestige	semi-innovator entrepreneurrefined cuisine styletype of clubs:luxury restaurants	imitator entrepreneurnew fashioning styletype of clubs:evening osterias and music clubs

 

The first dimension, following the Schumpeter (1971) classic model, is the rate of capacity and desire to innovate "high or low".

The second is the motivation linked to the auto-expression here understood as an escape from dependent/routine jobs and a necessary sphere for ones own creativity. It can also be oriented to profit and/or prestige which such a profession gives and it derives from a 'literature' upon a society of wide consumption.

From these dimensions derive four different types of entrepreneurs whom manage different bars and restaurants.

1)

The district builders who come from movements of the new Italian political left make the first typology. Principally their bars and restaurants are jazz clubs, music-pubs and the readapted osterias, which follow the modern taste. The management style is radical chic; they are ex employers now rich but not insensitive to socio-political problems. They analyse these problems in a free way and they operate in an informal and open manner.

The Other three types of typologies belongs to the second 'entrepreneur's generation', which uses more or less innovate discoveries from the first generation.

2)

The district builders who come from movements of the new Italian political left make the first typology. Principally their bars and restaurants are jazz clubs, music-pubs and the readapted osterias, which follow the modern taste. The management style is radical chic; they are ex employers now rich but not insensitive to socio-political problems. They analyse these problems in a free way and they operate in an informal and open manner.

 

3)

The semi-innovative entrepreneur who has operated between the 80's and the 90's is an educated young entrepreneur who decides to open in a nice and historical district like the Navigli, a "medium-high cuisine restaurant" supported by his high cooking and his charming manners. He decides to utilise the district attraction to put in something that has never been in it before. The style is that of a refined and Amphitryon chef who likes talking with his clients between courses to increment prestige and fame.

 

4)

The semi-imitating entrepreneur is young and he generally comes from a rich family. He uses his relatives' money to open fashion bars and restaurants like karaoke, pubs and disco-bars. In this way he escapes from hetero-directed jobs seen as a mental alienation. These are "baby" entrepreneurs, they do their job and defend their interests but for them very important is the enjoyment dimension. For this they are more similar to consumers than entrepreneurs.

 

5)

The imitator is motivated by gain, which a district of amusement offers, and he is a perfect free rider in it, he offers any news and improvements. Here the family dimension is important in the management too. His style of life is that of a new arrival who goes up on the social scale and follows all forms of dominant values created by fashion.

 

It is interesting to note a connection between imitator or semi-imitator entrepreneurs and 'predatory' association, which generates them.

The Customers.

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are". (Brillat-Savarin 1985)

 

For Navigli customers the typology depends on:

a) Type of motivation (escape - auto-expression; integration-belonging to community)
b) way of auto-direction and hetero-direction behaviour).

 

Both these dimensions are linked to 'modern' consumption society.

So we can note different types of consumers: 1970s nostalgic consumer; habitual consumer; 'specialised' consumer; searching consumer; searching and anomic consumer; anomic-integrated consumer and the working consumer.

	autodirected behaviour	heterodirected behaviour
motivation I : integration/belonging to community	A1 1970s nostalgic consumer A2 habitual consumer	C working consumer
motivation II :autoexpression/escape	B1 refined-specialised consumer B2 anomic consumer and or searching consumer	D anomic consumer

 

The A consumers frequent the Navigli for emotional reasons. They are forty-fifty year old people who, in some ways, participated in the 60s and 70s political movements. They come here to look for some old friends to talk with about the country political and social status or about common friends. They normally frequent the same bars and restaurants of 'ex-comrades'. They form a little community used by them as a source of personal identity (nostalgic consumer) Beside these there are also younger consumers do not link to a particular historical or political period, they frequent these bars and restaurants with a foolish artistic ambition (sometimes improvising with a guitar) or they are friends of regular consumers or friends of owners, they simply live there! All of these constituted a sort of live furniture for the clubs (habitual consumer). It is not a case that bars and restaurants that they frequent are the same of the '68s nostalgic consumers': but for the same informal atmosphere caused by the manager's origin.

The B1 consumer searches hours of 'intelligent' enjoyment. They are a 'specialised consumer' integrated into the society where he lives, pleased by his position at work. S/he does not live for the necessity of more free time, which rewards them from frustrations, but likes some cultural consumption to reinforce their identity and to assure them about their 'very good position' and their critical capacity. In fact they never choose common clubs or popular shows, they goes to Navigli because they wants a club, that plays particular music and they want to eat a particular dish.

The B2 consumer does not want to follow the mainstream system because they do not like a pattern. They can have a strong personality and values but they search for better ways to express them. They impose margins to their creativity and inventions: searching consumer. But they can also be on an anxious search without strong references and be an anomic and searching consumer. Their way of undecided and fragile operation is determined by the 'crash of moral community' so as Durkheim called it, so fails the normative system, the values which had given clear directives of existence and in spite of they discover a greater freedom, at the same time their uncertainty grows. They could arrive: where it is possible to find a strong and original identity, where people are simply searching consumers, where it is possible to fail into 'ecstasy' depression (understood as an escape in strong and extreme emotions and in the artificial empathy to excel rational difficulties) becoming an integrated anomic, where you must put up with the system, ending the research and becoming a dissatisfied working consumer; in each cases they move themself towards other consumer typologies. Of course it is possible not to change and this is the more frequent result.

In each case the B2 consumer is able to auto-direct themself, and this fact removes them from fashion inducted by industries of free time. So if they choose to go to Navigli they will lean toward something specific, for example a blues or jazz concert of an artist not very known to the public. However their emotions take them towards other leisure places so this makes it is possible to say that they are not a usual consumer in the district.

The anomic-integrated consumer type D in the table is dissatisfied about things but he does anything to change them or himself, he chooses an easy escape that doesn't change the status quo. They search 'not a relief from tension but the exact contrary: a specific type of tension, a form of excitement connected with fear, sadness and a lot of other emotion which everybody keeps away from in every day life' (Elias & Dunning 1989)

The consumption of ecstasy in the discos nowadays is nearly a common practice amongst younger like the "joint" seven or eight years ago, it is an extreme consumption so exemplary to describe this sort of consumers. We are not saying that all of those who belong to this category are ecstasy consumers, but the type of needs and the manner to search them are very similar.

From a research made by the A.A.S.Ter society in 1994 among discos in the north-east of Italy (Lombardia e Veneto: Como, Brescia, Cremona, Mantova, Verona, Vicenza) results that the 80-85% of the interviewers often used ecstasy and in the most of the cases on Saturday and Sunday evenings. The use of the ecstasy is strictly connected with enjoyment, with "lived time" to cut out in a very shot space in a very intense manner.

These necessities are strictly connected with the very strong need for "social status" denied by the productive rules. Obviously ecstasy gives that "temporary state of conscience alteration" which served to create such need. It appears evident the connection between the use of ecstasy and the working condition of post-Ford worker. It is also evident that the places like discos, "after hour", "raves" where the ecstasy is principally used are linked to the new musical tendency (Moroni 1996)

The typical D consumer has a job, which does not give identity and social status and chooses temporary modalities for enjoyment, lived in a very intensive manner because it is rewarding. On the other hand they give to official structures or operators the possibility to organise their social lives and for their need to enjoy themselves, this happens in a functional way for the status quo. In fact after having their extreme enjoyment these very good people return to their "honest jobs".

This type of consumer is in the Navigli too. It is principally represented by numerous younger who often come from Bergamo, Brescia and Como (joined by the Milanesi) who does this journey predominantly on Fridays and Saturdays to go to deafening clubs and exit dulled by alcohol and onto another club of the similar kind, but far from the first one, to stay until the morning.

Satisfied working consumer (type C): He is the integrate one that also in the free time wants to demonstrate that he is like the others, he belongs to this big tribe and in a way he continues to work even during leisure time in a rule created for him by the system. A system that he does not want to disappoint. "The structure of rules and values in the industrial working world, where the top aim is production, finds an application in free time too. This free time, considered and emphasised as a reward for the job, is very sinchroniced with the principle of higher efficiency and to the rule of increasing productivity … He is very careful about his free time … The measure of free time is constantly pushed up by the consumption competition showed in society … This production consists in the consumption of immaterial perceptions and products. Tha act of consumption belongs to his experience and learning field, but does not modify deeply the subject and nature of his needs, because requirement of measuring each other in the index of the rendering of time keeps him linked to a quantitative character and stops the qualitative modification of the relation sphere" (Savelli 1984)

This type is a bit of a Toeffler presumption, he deals with "terrible" sacrifices to obtain his little piece of homogeneous free time: - queues; - traffic; - noise; - and pays to be insulted "for jokes", in bars and restaurants like "La parolaccia" in Rome. This type of clubs does not exist in the Milanese Latin District of Navigli, but most of the consumers which come to this district are very similar to working consumer who are always in search of famous bars and restaurants to be able to say "I was there".

The conclusion is that the customers are principally hetero-directed and as if Elias (1988) thinks "To be civilised means to operate with a real intention having to aim for reasonable needs, so we are civil when we have a "constant reflexive capacity prevision, capacity in calculation, auto-control, precise and articulate self-control of the effects of our actions" (Elias). Then the consumers presumed or anomic-integrating behaviour which is dominant in the Navigli consumers, who live in a continuous state of unsatisfactory regarding the 'always' new material products, who do not think about their life but blindly follow models of behaviour and habits kept without any critical thought, it confirms a sort of incivility of the free time in the district.

This incivility in part is shared by those entrepreneurs-consumers who open bars and restaurants without any projects, they only want to continue to play, consuming amusements and living a life of integrate always 'getting-away'.

Future Patterns.

Once demonstrated that the district exists and after having studied in an analytical way the actors, the organisation and the problems, it seems suitable 'remembering what we have said,' to do some considerations about these bars and restaurants future.

The history of the constitutive elements of the amusement and entrepreneurs of the district, leads us towards the conclusion that the Navigli presents lots of innovative elements, whose strength has been so big that in spite of the 80's the Navigli began to loose the capacity to innovate themselves or to create newness, still today is a landmark for Milanese free time.

In this position they are helped by Milan which is on a low level of innovative ideas in the amusement field; and by prevailing hetero-directed behaviours of the customers who do not know how to ask or only to imagine better things and they just enjoy themselves with 'streets of water' walking with the sensation to be able to choose between many alternatives. In search, after the trouble to find a parking, of a club where it is possible to socialise or to find again a part of their own fragile identity, because jobs do not return it.

It is very interesting to understand the reasons of the Navigli success when we consider the desolating conclusion made by us concerning the innovation for entrepreneurs, associations and esthetical functionality bars and restaurants or imagining the future scenery of Milanese leisure.

It seems that bars and restaurants and the entrepreneurs have two possibilities: - doing nothing, continuing to transform the degraded plastic funny play for children-adults who live in an uncivilly way in their recreation time. In this context to live uncivilly has the Finkelstein meaning, in a hetero-directed way full of simulated needs created by fashion, and constantly in search of something impossible to find in the Navigli's social life and culture. Maybe this happens because of the poor creativity in Milan. The other solution is to operate in a constructed way both in the ecological and cultural field, pressing the institution with serious and good projects to begin a solid collaboration between private and public. So they create some problems for competitors who begin to open 'private-social' bars and restaurants along the State railways, and also live the euphoria of still being the new leisure model, giving themselves a 'clear' commercial future.

The choice of this second option would make it necessary to find solutions which meet the individual demands of all the participants, starting from the principal elements of weakness in the recreational area as pointed out:

 

1. The existence of a high level of conflict amongst the entrepreneurs, inhabitants, consumers and establishments.
2. The lowering of the amount of innovation both with regard to recreational offer and to the aesthetic / functional types of premises.
3. Urban and environmental degradation due to the lack of car parks, bad road conditions, noise, and the absence of normal maintenance and planning to make the district more liveable and enjoyable.

If these are the main problems linked to the area, what action should be taken and with the aid of which instruments? The key words are:

Communication, Innovation, Quality.

COMMUNICATION: Signifies understanding the need to create relationships and promote discussion amongst the entrepreneurs, inhabitants, various establishments and consumers in order to define a shared strategy. Working on decisions with an upward momentum, as hoped for/specified in the Local Agenda 21.

Communicate: How? Open forum.

An open forum is one of the most successful methodologies to solve conflicts and favour endogenous/interior local development based on the evaluation of local resources and responsibilities in the area. The Forum foresees the participation of the main public and private participants in the recreational area, who would be organised into groups to work on the themes of urban community in relation to the recreational establishments (the theme of community is to be understood both as a promotion against social degradation and as an improvement of environmental and urban degradation) and on the role of recreational establishments as regards cultural and recreational benefit. The activities of the work groups will be co-ordinated by national and international experts, who will co-ordinate and moderate the meetings in order to aid the decisional process.

 

INNOVATION The introduction of new products both in terms of recreational and cultural benefit and in terms of aesthetic/functional planning of the establishments, and also in terms of communication and promotion.

Innovate? How? Networking and awards

By promoting networking activities with the exchange of knowledge among various European countries, studying the successful cases of innovation in the field of recreational activity and in the management of the difficulties caused by recent urban transformations.

By organising training courses, perhaps distance learning courses directed towards the entrepreneurs in the recreational and cultural sector, also in collaboration with other European countries.

By implementing an annual prize for the most innovative establishment from the point of view of recreational benefit, of aesthetic typology and of management. The competition would take place initially on a local basis, but subsequently it could be extended to a wider horizon (regional, national, European).

 

QUALITY: The improvement of the production process: from the client's own knowledge, to the protection of the environment, and finally to the safety of the workers and consumers.

 

Quality: How? Integrated Quality Management

Application of a management programme and of a quality plan integrated into the establishments. The integrated management system allows the following benefits to be obtained:

Externally: reducing the impact on the environment and improving the welcome, the safety and the service offered to clients.

Internally: rationalising working conditions and reducing management costs.

The actors of this ecological-recreative re-conversion project of Navigli (not only entrepreneurs, but also institutions, consumers and residents) must decide if they want to accept this challenge without hesitation, that according to Berman, "promises adventure, power, growth, joy, transformation of us and of the world, and in the same time threatens to destroy everything we are " (Berman 1985). The challenge is high, we are not sure if the multitude of entrepreneurs will leave their certainty to begin the big travel of change.

 

Notes.

1) Riportiamo solo quest'esempio di nuova offerta di leisure perché ci sembra il più macroscopico sia per diffusione che qualitativamente, non ignorando che esistono altre modalità nuove e interessanti di fruizione dello svago, ma più limitate nel senso detto.

2) Le scansioni temporali utilizzate per inquadrare la storia del district sono state scelte osservando la serie storica ricavata dai dati ufficiali della Camera di Commercio, che si trova nel primo paragrafo del quarto capitolo di questa ricerca

3) Modern is what answers to technologies and taste of our time

4) Period is the absorption of an already existing object (American bar, decò bar)

5) Cloned old milanese pub (cloned osteria), is an osteria, which tries to recreate using furniture and atmosphere, the idea, the flavour of a real old osteria.

6) Mutant old Milanese pub (mutant osteria) is the osteria that changes some elements of the original adding some modern elements in furniture or to the typologies of leisure supply.

7) fonte: vedi nota n. 9

 

Bibliography

Balzac Du Camp, Paris, VI, p.294.

Berman, M. (1985) L'esperienza della modernità, Feltrinelli.

Brillat-Savarin. (1985) Fisiologia del Gusto. Rizzoli (prima ed. 1895)

Camagni, R. (1992) Economia urbana : principi e modelli teorici. NIS

Elias, N. (1988) Il processo di civilizzazione. il Mulino.

Elias, N. opera citata nella nota 28

Elias & Dunning (1989) Sport e aggressività. il Mulino.

fonte: vedi nota n. 9

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Paola Arrigoni (Vimercate –Milano- 1969) Sociologist, expert in the field of regional development. She is currently working in a socio-economic research institute called ISPO (Studies on the public opinion). Co-founder of the '89 Studies Centre', a multidisciplinary group (philosophy, art, sociology, biology, etc,) whose goal is the cultural growth of the Milanese civil society and the promotion of the entrepreneurial mentality among the young and the disadvantage groups. In the recent past she has been working for ACTA (Association for culture, tourism and environment) that gathers experts in the field of sustainable tourism and regional planning and has collaborated with the Milanese Superior Institute of Sociology. Email: paola.arri@libero.it

 

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