BOLZANO. Can a cappuccino be the mirror of our discontent? Maybe yes. The post on social media by Enrico Lilloformer city councilor, causes discussion.
If to take two cappuccinos with two desserts in the city center it rains on the table almost 15 euro bill (2.40pm to be precise), clearly stamped on the receipt. And if you have affixed the price of the same order next to the photograph that portrays it Salento – 6.80 overall and including the waiter’s smile, very rare here – makes the post flood with hundreds of comments, as if Pandora’s box had been opened.
«There is not only the difference between Bolzano and other cities – says one of the least cruel – but the one that is increasingly widening between our center and the neighborhoods. Going to the center means being overwhelmed by prices that only tourists can afford…”. To wit: according to the latest surveys, a single coffee at the counter goes from an average of between 2 and 1.80 euros in the square to a maximum of 1.30 in the suburbs. But not extreme.
And the bartenders? «They discovered America» quips Claudio Marchesini, former Domino and now Corte at Palazzo Campofranco. Meaning what? «That here everything costs double. I won’t tell you how much we pay in rent. And the costs of places similar to ours on this side of Talvera are incomparable. How are they amortized? The question is another: Bolzano has a cost of living comparable to Milan with its salaries stuck at ten years ago.”
With the additional variable: the cost of living rises, while the quality of urban life falls. Facebook doesn’t say it, the dozens of rankings of authoritative economic newspapers that verify the rankings of Italian cities say it. Bolzano was first a couple of years ago, today on average tenth. Also due to the purchasing power of its citizens which has dropped dramatically. Cristina Masera observes: «Bolzano prices are devastating entire social categories».
According to the CGIL secretary, it is absolutely necessary to make the table on the cost of living between institutions and unions operational, given that the basket is unreliable and, she adds, it can only be respected by following, if all goes well, the offers from supermarkets: «Inflation is Milanese, but the salaries are from Bolzano, the crux is here, not in the bars. 1,500 euros per month, average monthly emolument, allows you to live elsewhere and to survive in Bolzano.”
And the secretary is waiting for the relief promised to companies and workers. Speaking of work. «Elsewhere they don’t have to hope for a miracle to hire a baker to prepare croissants for us at five in the morning», explains Franco Collesei. Which, he insists, must be taken into account, in addition to the difficulties of finding staff, that of having raw materials capable of keeping prices low. «I know – comments the owner of Walthers’ – that everything here costs money. But if it costs more for us, it cannot cost less for those who consume.”
And the tourists? «They have an impact. But those have always been there. Of course, not to the extent of recent years. I can imagine that the phenomenon increases the perception, in the people of Bolzano, of being tightened by a noose…”. That is, between the high cost of living in the metropolis – and this is now a constant – and the high cost of living induced by prices in turn stimulated by an international clientele with other salaries than those in Bolzano.
«There has been an undoubted acceleration in prices – says Roland Buratti – but it does not necessarily mean that it was necessarily induced by the phenomenon of overtourism». The president of the tourist board has been monitoring the movements of guests entering the city for years. And it sees an increase in the offer of B&Bs and clubs. “But I struggle – he insists – to directly correlate the tourist influx with the cost of living.”
Of course, and this also emerges from your research, Bolzano has become a tourist destination itself rather than, as in the past, an intermediate stop. With the evident tendency to position itself on the price levels of the historic tourist centres, from Gardena to Pusteria. «And the people of Bolzano probably feel this. Bolzano? He could do better with what he has…” concludes Buratti. Meanwhile, Enrico Lillo, author of the post with the opposing receipts and already a member of the municipal centre-right, counts the comments: they have visibly increased in the space of a few hours. Is this an increasingly important issue, even if it is not new?