Is life bad in Turin? Yes, but only if the reference model is Heidi’s

According to a survey by Il Sole 24 ore, in the last 12 months the quality of life in Turin has seriously deteriorated, causing the city to lose 12 positions and dropping it from 28th to 40th place. Amazing. Because, living there, this great collapse has not been seen. Naturally there are difficult suburbs, as in all big cities, there are people in difficulty and there are problems to solve. But the collapse that the statistics talk about seems much more a narrative than a real fact.

According to the ranking, a synthesis of a large number of parameters, it would be above all atmospheric pollution and crime that would bring Turin down. Anyone who lives in this city knows that the air is often stagnant as is inevitable in a city on the plain between the Alps and the hills. However, the fact that the situation has worsened so much in recent months seems difficult to sustain. Just as the rate of complaints is very dubious for establishing the crime index: do you live better where there are many complaints or where everyone is silent?

Then there are verdicts that clash with reality. Let’s take the sportsmanship index calculated on the basis of the “attractiveness of major events”, sports facilities, memberships. That Turin is in 21st place behind Bergamo, Milan, Treviso and Macerata is, with all due respect, rather queer. Turin is the only Italian city with a 15,000-seat sports hall, and this is the reason why it can host the ATP tennis finals. Turin is the only Italian city where the two Serie A football teams play in two distinct stadiums, each of which has become their home. An objective that Rome and Milan have been vainly trying to achieve for decades. Why the sporting attractiveness of this city should be behind that of Macerata escapes most.

It could go on and on. The basic question does not concern this or that city but the evaluation criterion. If the reference model is the world of Heidi, the folders that say hello, then it is normal that cities such as Bolzano, Trento, Aosta are at the top of these rankings. But everyone knows that’s not the case. Because Heidi’s cabin is in a fantasy world but at a certain age Heidi, inexplicably, gets annoyed, leaves the pasture, goes down to the city and crowds into the shopping malls. In short, she lives and gets her hands dirty. And you pollute and you have to deal with pickpockets and you have to get by. And she doesn’t care about rankings.