Alberto leaves Florence after 15 years and returns to Calabria: life is too expensive

He arrived in Florence as a university student with great enthusiasm. But now, after 15 years and despite a permanent job, Alberto Mezzotero is forced to leave the Tuscan capital and return to his home region, Calabria. The cost of living, especially housing, is too high, and his teaching salary isn't enough to get by.

Mezzotero, now 44, came to Tuscany initially to study and then to teach elementary school. He became a tenured teacher in 2015 and worked in several comprehensive schools in Florence. Over the years, he increasingly found it difficult to live in Florence on a teacher's salary, especially due to the high rents and the lack of affordable housing.

To stay in Florence, Alberto tried everything, even sharing the rent with other tenants, even though he was no longer a student. In the end, he asked for and received the transfer to Cosenza, explaining that his choice is only economic: in Florence, he said, "with my salary there is no way to live with dignity."

According to ISTAT data elaborated in recent studies, approximately 60–65 thousand people per year They are moving from the Center-North to the South: they are returning emigrants, who are unable to afford the cost of living, from groceries to housing, in the northern regions. At the same time, the South continues to lose population because approximately 110–120 thousand people per year they go from the South to the Center-North.

Both movements signal different pathologies. In the first case, people return because their income isn't enough to withstand the shockwave of the cost of living. In the second case, people emigrate because education in the South is less rewarding than in the North and job opportunities are significantly fewer.

Cover photo taken from the FB page of Alberto Mezzotero

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