Italy Is Running Out of Italians. Britain Faces a Similar Demographic Catastrophe. The Telegraph’s travel writer: ‘Declining White birthrates prevent Italy from overcoming its economic slump.’

Ghost Countries

Italy is turning into a ghost country. A devastating demographic crisis has now reached even the wealthy northern regions. Yet this problem is not unique to Italy: it merely highlights the broader trend of the decline of Western civilisation.

The steep decline of Italy’s once-prosperous north is the result of a shortage of workers, families, and taxpayers.

Fewer Whites

Over the past couple of years, I travelled all over Italy. Mostly the islands, Sardinia and Sicily, and the southern regions of Puglia and Calabria.

These are places where every travel writer is contractually obliged to draw attention to the picturesque contrast between decay and ancient splendor.

And yes, I noticed it too: crumbling palazzi, roads overgrown with grass, towns half-shuttered by lunchtime. In the south, it is part of life, one might even call it part of the local character. Both Italy and the Italians can still be incredibly charming.

Shocked

But last month, I went somewhere different. First, to the supposedly affluent northeast, around Trieste. Then I visited the wealthy industrial heartland south of Milan, the Po Valley, Pavia, Piacenza, where Italy makes its money through manufacturing.

And, I admit, I was shocked. Because the chaos and decay of the south are now spreading across the entire Bel Paese, the ‘beautiful country’.

Mamma Mia!

The first thing you notice is the roads. Mamma mia, they are awful!

You can drive along a main road from one major city to another and encounter potholes every hundred metres so large that you could bury a Fiat 500 in them.

At least, that is what it feels like. After a week of winding my way along such roads, my nerves were frayed, as was the car’s suspension. And my concern is based on indisputable facts. I looked into the matter.

Italy in a pothole

In 2014, Rome partially abolished Italy’s provinces and their elected governments, stripped them of their budgets, but left them responsible for 130,000 kilometres of roads.

Maintenance became a fiction. By 2017, provincial leaders were formally filing complaints with prosecutors in an attempt to avoid legal liability in cases where deteriorating road surfaces caused deaths. A year later, the Morandi Bridge over the Polcevera River in Genoa collapsed.

Last year, the government announced a 70 per cent cut in funding for provincial roads, and Emilia-Romagna, the very region through which I was travelling, will lose half of its funding. Local authorities warned that they would have no choice but to close roads.

Broken roads and Broken cars

Once you notice the broken roads, you begin to see everything else. Abandoned factories with smashed lights, dilapidated, dying shopping centers, graffiti almost everywhere.

This is what Europe’s decline looks like, and the numbers confirm it. Italy is the only major economy where real wages are lower than they were in 1990. GDP per capita has barely changed since the introduction of the euro.

Chinese Grab

Production of Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia cars has collapsed to levels not seen since the 1950s. Meanwhile, China has taken over the country’s textile, footwear, and furniture industries, which once took pride in the label ‘Made in Italy’.

And behind all this lies something even more troubling: Italy is running out of Italians. Last year, a record-low number of children were born in the country, 355,000, nearly 40 per cent fewer than in 2008.

Demographic Disaster

Meanwhile, 652,000 people died. This natural population decline of almost 300,000 people a year is effectively wiping out a city the size of Verona. With a fertility rate of 1.14 and a median age of 49.1, Italy is the oldest country in the EU.

This decline is probably what a very old country looks like: too few young workers to patch the potholes, too few young families to fill the shelves of shops, and too few taxpayers to provide the country with the money to pay for any of the above.

Illusions of Greatness

We Britons like to tell ourselves that we are doomed. But that is not true. In 1987, Italy celebrated il sorpasso, ‘the overtaking’, the year its economy surpassed Britain’s.

Today, nobody in Rome talks about il sorpasso. But before claiming any British superiority, it is worth looking at the trends: an ageing society, low labor productivity, and a government incapable of solving even basic problems.

Italy’s fate could befall any Western country that is not having children and cannot compete with China.

World Egg Cup

I ended my journey through Italy in a station bar full of young people, in a small, moonlit town near Piacenza.

It was Sunday evening, and the World Cup final was taking place. The Italians, of course, were not in it. The Azzurri became the first former world champions in history to miss three consecutive World Cups.

They have not reached the final stage of the tournament since 2014, and this time they failed even to qualify from a competition involving 48 national teams.

So, the bar was full of young Italians who could barely remember a time when their country had taken part in the World Cup.

Nevertheless, they had come to watch the final between other nations, following it closely with a mixture of beer-fueled apathy and performative excitement.

Then, after the final whistle, they said goodbye, exchanged kisses, and silently disappeared into the city’s sultry darkness, walking along roads scarred with potholes. Let readers know what you think

THANK YOU FOR SHARING WITH FRIENDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA.