The excavation work of the Cavour canal began in July 1863. It took just three years to complete the 83 kilometers that divide the Ticino di Galliate from the Po di Chivasso, and therefore 27 kilometers were built in the budget year. About 14,000 workers were employed, treated without compliments as was the practice of the time, and in the end the bill rose to 54 million lire in the Kingdom, half a billion euros at today’s prices. Incredible, with the eyes of our spendthrift century.
The Asti-Cuneo motorway, here again, is 7 kilometers longer than the hydraulic corridor dreamed of by Camillo Benso, the first Italian prime minister. It was funded in 1998. Work began in 2000. The first 11-kilometer stretch was inaugurated in 2005, after an advance at a dozing pace of 2.2 kilometers a year. In our strange summer 2021, about ten kilometers are missing. Which makes the A33 one of the most painful examples of how badly infrastructural Italy can do when it decides to give its worst.
The comparison between the two stories helps to remember that most of the difficulties we live in are daughters of the Great Possible that we cannot make use of. The ideal triangle formed by Liguria, Piedmont and Val d’Aosta, is a polygon with a long history of fantastic imagined and realized talents. The numbers say it is growing below potential, despite being an attractive land for investors interested in deals of all sizes. It doesn’t take much to believe it, if only in June the innovative startups registered in the business register exceeded one thousand. It is one of the indicators of the driving force that exists and must be exploited.
Great beginnings are often invisible. Yet, from hiring to consumer credit, passing through the real estate market, the statistics reveal – after the double pandemic shock – that the Northwest patient is alive and clearly speak of a restart. Of course, nothing can be taken for granted, between one variant and another the drama could materialize again. However, it is clear that this is the time to try to take flight. Entrepreneurs, brains and young people seem to be largely ready. There is no administration, and thus a reactive politics, free from useless ideologies and personal agendas. It is time to do good that lasts. To be Canale Cavour more than the A33. The example is the new works, the railway to Aosta, the Third Pass. It takes results to be proud of, not fools to be ashamed of. Immediately. Because if it’s not now, it may never be again.