This study is anchored on the perspective of local turn in migrant integration, which requires cities to play an increasingly important role in defining public policies. Consequently, the research focuses on the explorative case of the city of Milan, aiming to demonstrate whether its local system provides a toolbox for refugees to promote their integration in the host/majority milieus. Through a qualitative method, based on semi-structured interviews with politicians, local officers, NGO activists, volunteers, and refugees, we will try to understand élite and non-élite perspective about how and where the refugees of the reception system of Milan can find an accommodation, at the end of the institutional process. In this way, it will also be possible to understand how the municipality is facing the restrictions to the Italian asylum system, the crisis of the welfare, the market-dominated systems of housing provision and the suspiciousness or racism towards immigrants, considered as a burden or a threat for the society.

LIPU is a non-profit association founded in the 1960s committed to the conservation of nature, the protection of biodiversity and the promotion of ecological culture in Italy. This paper traces the events that marked its history, investigating the aims, initiatives and results achieved. A specific case study is then addressed, that of the Centro Habitat Mediterraneo in Ostia, which is a virtuous example of the recovery and enhancement of a previously abandoned area, now transformed into a place where environment and culture interact in a particularly dynamic reality with marked connotations of social inclusiveness.

No abstract

The One Belt One Road initiative is fundamental in the priority projects of the Chinese government, as it falls within the objectives of revitalization of the national economy through the increase in GDP and the creation of new international links. Consequently, in these years China is developing a great economic integration plan based also on a complex set of transport and logistics infrastructures. The construction of a complex of highways, high-speed railways, ports, airports, oil pipelines and telecommunications networks is in progress, aimed at increasing internal economic, financial and cultural relations and exchanges, as well as those between Beijing and many Asian, European, African states. It is therefore particularly interesting to try to grasp the role played by Italy in this ambitious project that – once completed – is destined to redesign the commercial and financial network on a world scale.

The article aims to reconstruct diachronically the interest that Italian geographers have devoted over the years to the study of China, and the scientific and popular written production which is consequently born. Therefore, we try to identify what were the issues investigated in a so wide and complex reality since the mid-nineteenth century to the present day; the writings published and in what different approaches; what image they have helped to spread of China among Italian readers. Finally we consider some ongoing projects involving Italian geographers who are now interested in the study of China and its relations with our country, and we outline some of the many useful research perspectives that occur in the future for the scholars of geographical sciences.