I received my local council rates notice last week (*grrr*).

After choking on my crostili and musing, yet again, on the nefarious black art of working out j-u-s-t how far one can load up our rates burden without triggering civil unrest, I started to think about how Local Government works in Italy.

And so off I ventured into the dark and stormy night with my trusty pencil and notebook…

Read here for my notes on Italian Regional and Local Government.

Interestingly, the whole exercise threw up a bunch of other questions that I want to follow through

• In a centralised, unitary state, how are revenue and services equalised across the regions?
• What effect did the constitutional changes of 2001 have on regional vs state rights?
• How does the historical division between the ‘rich’ north and the ‘poor’ south filter through into daily life?

 

Food for another post, methinks…