Villa San Giovanni

Not again, please!

— The Times

The town of Villa San Giovanni, whose archaic origins predate Greek colonization, was rebuilt several times after the devastating earthquakes that have struck the area throughout history. Despite the modern layout of the alleys of the fishing villages of Cannitello and Punta Pezzo, one could still sense the whisper of time and the echo of a past of conquests, travelers, and adventures then.

The fishing village of Cannitello, once before the Messina bridge was built, was a charming and evocative spot where one could see the typical Calabrian "feluche" (fishermen) searching for swordfish, the undisputed star of this area's cuisine. There one could even meet swimmers from across the strait and enjoy an intact, unique view of the Sicilian coast and the Aeolian Islands, which is all disturbed now by the monumental bridge, which throws its monumental shadows over the still most populated district, Pezzo, where one had the opportunity to swim at the tip of the same name in the narrowest part of the strait, just a stone's throw from the coast of Messina.

Whereas the earthquake has triggered immediate reconstruction, the city has nearly become extinct for other reasons:

In 1743 the Black Death had spread as far as Messina. Although the city had been quarantined, smugglers between the two shores circulated an infected coat and some blankets, spreading the epidemic in Calabria, killing most of the population, and the rest moved north when economics and trade came to life again.

2036 when the construction of The Strait of Messina Bridge (Italian: Ponte sullo stretto di Messina) has started, northern dominating Italy has decided that not only one of the bridge's pillars had to stand in the middle of Cannitello port, but most parts of the old quarters had to be evacuated for preconstructions taking place, logistics and the temporary homes for the workforce required for the construction of this monumental, 9 billion Euro project.

Well compensated with billions of additional EU taxpayer money, the city's inhabitants were mostly more than happy to relocate, as the EU was more than happy that at least the launch of the project went smoothly without too many legal objections and lower security constraints, as the areas beyond the bridge in construction were just declared no-go zones.

However, when the construction was stopped in 2042 for budgetary and political reasons, a stream of refugees flooded the site and settled for the next 8 years among all that was too heavy or too costly to remove when the project was closed: cranes, concrete mixing plants, half-finished pillar foundations, preconstructed pieces of the bridge, etc. All the area was and has remained a mess without a plan for access streets and the lacking basic sanitary infrastructure, which, of course, was removed when the construction site was closed.

And as nobody really cared for this lost place, not even the Mafia, one of the toughest survival zones has created a highly organized melting pot for the ones nobody in Europe wanted to have: on one hand, uneducated African and Middle Eastern refugees flooding in in unprecedented numbers and on the other side, criminal elites recruiting their private army gang members from the survivors of this brutal evolutionary selection machine, where only the toughest made it longer than a year or two.

When in 2050 constuction should have relaunched again, Europe faced resistance not only from the united gangs defending their new claimed territory but form many kidnappings, terror attacks, open warfare etc. all over Europe to make the point clear, that the gangs will never leave from their "state".

And so, NATO finally has bombed it all flat, literally.

Until the bridge's completion in 2072, constructions were stopped three times again causing 2059 the collapse of an already completed part and in 2064 due to incompatibilites what has continued on the Sicilian side but replanned and reconstruced on the Messina side.

Europeans were so used to and fed up with the project failing and failing again that it was called the "MafiaBridge", because everybody was speculating that the Mafia wanted, on one hand, to keep construction ongoing and earn big with it and, on the other hand, to regain control over the former crime area below it whenever construction has halted again.

And so when the Messina bridge collapsed last week, nobody really has assumed something differnt than the Mafia just throwing another blast, with many hoping, that this has put the final nail in the coffin of this meanwhile 270 billion crazy, so that the area below the bridge, what was the Villa of San Giovanni one, can finally given back to its people.