The impact of migrations on ethnically connoted areas: a case study

Taipana is a 699 inhabitants village located in the Eastern Julian Pre-Alps. It is inhabited by a linguistic minority, whose survival is endangered by the ageing of its population and the abandon of the young and productive age group. The municipal administration is actively fighting the threatened disappearance of its population. While usually administrations take note of migration flows only when they arrived so far that they cannot be ignored anymore, the municipal administration of Taipana has decided to encourage migration to its territory, in order to stop its possible complete abandon. Through a housing policy of low cost rents and houses for sale, and thanks to a consolidated network of human relations, young families from other countries are thus attracted to settle here. Taipana is usually not their first stop in Italy. Many of them speak Italian. In Taipana they buy houses and open enterprises. Their children go to school there. At the moment, the school children community seems to be the best result of the repopulation policy: it is, in fact, a united group of young persons, all of them conscious and proud of their diversity. Their adult relatives seem to be more resistant to any kind of grouping. Old and new inhabitants apparently ignore each other and lead separated lives. If deeper investigated, a number of personal relations have grown between neighbours, colleagues, citizens. But none dares yet feeling the member of a new and original kind of community.