Italian city shows us a better way
by Bob Williams

It is hard to believe in this new century, but when I was a kid growing up on Vancouver’s east side, it was primarily an Anglo neighbourhood.
The exception to all this, however, was a post-war influx of a growing number of Italians who made our neighbourhood their home. These new neighbours brought with them what seemed to me an exotic view of the world, and maybe more important to a growing boy, a love for fine food and wine that was rare in our own Anglo household.
All of this is my way of explaining my continuing love affair with the Italians and the way they see the world. My renewed romance commenced once more on a study tour of the Emilia-Romagna region, which surrounds Bologna, about eight years ago. It was in this amazing area just east of Tuscany, that some of my colleagues at VanCity and I learned about the value system of these people, their co-operative economy and their unique history.
Central Bologna has maintained its medieval structure despite being a bustling medium-sized city. It has centuries-old buildings, many of which are linked to ancient city walls.
The main square is Piazza Maggiore, built in pre-Roman times, while the magnificent Piazza San Stefano a few blocks away features a church going back to the fourth century. Nearby, the city’s venerable yet vibrant University of Bologna, an institution that goes back to 1088, was the first university in Europe.
It was at this university, in the economics faculty, that we began to understand the nature of the Emilian economy and the profoundly different way the Bolognese do business.
The head of the university’s graduate program in co-operative economics, Dr Stefano Zamagni, explained the fundamentals of their worldview; Zamagni sees a “balanced triangle” as the model for a caring, advanced economic system. Two sides of that triangle he describes in a manner common to most Western liberal democracies:
· the market system and the exchange of equivalent goods.
· the role of the state and the redistribution of wealth to support the weakest in society.
Professor Zamagni argues that the British shift to the welfare state after the Second World War was a noble experiment by an advanced social democratic government. But the professor also argues that over time, we have seen the weaknesses of this system, which can too often be disabling amongst the very people it was designed to help, while ironically empowering a distant bureaucratic elite.
At the same time, Zamagni and his colleagues argue that we should maintain the original goals they had in Britain, while re-thinking the process and the delivery system. That is precisely what they have done in Emilia-Romagna.
The Emilians have determined that there must be a third side to the triangle, namely co-operation and reciprocity, which is very much a part of their society and economy.
The people of this region, while accepting the reality of a highly competitive world, also believe there is a great need for co-operation as well as competition. Their own economy reflects this unique braiding of these two threads of co-operation and competition.
Emilia-Romagna is highly entrepreneurial, with some 300,000 small enterprises, of which 100,000 are small manufacturers. In addition, the region supports some 15,000 co-operative firms. More than that, Emilians have developed a pervasive co-operative infrastructure to support small- and medium-sized firms.
The end result of this pattern is probably the most pluralistic networked system of individual and family enterprises in the world. The co-operative networks allow the small firms to do what they do best, without the back offices (there’s co-op support for that), or the encumbrance of international marketing (there’s sectoral support for that) or funding for research or technological transfer (there’s co-operative infrastructure for that as well).
The result has been a galaxy of small, medium-sized, individual or family-owned enterprises that work together in a networked, co-operative way to jointly produce high value-added products. These products are, in turn, exported.
In a sense, the Emilians have built themselves the best of two different worlds. Some have described it as the Emilian Model.
These thoughtful folk have also reworked the social side of their society. Over the past few decades, as the northern Italians concluded that the state was a poor deliverer of social services, they began a massive shift in the delivery of what Professor Zamagni calls “relationship goods.” This shift has resulted in the creation of thousands of local social co-operatives for the delivery of childcare, senior’s care, health, and other social services.
These community co-ops are locally and democratically controlled, yet still funded by the State. The result is a more responsive delivery system that costs far less than government agencies. Through these co-ops, neighbourhood people control and manage the system, providing more value for money and much higher client or member satisfaction.
For the past eight years, the board at VanCity has provided a modest subsidy to support annual study tours to this fascinating region. For the past three years, VanCity and the BC Co-operative Association under John Restakis have developed a formal program with the University of Bologna, a program that includes one week in Vancouver and three weeks in Bologna. There is also an eight-day leadership tour of the region that covers the highlights of this amazing place.
The course is comprised of tours in the region (everything from successful social co-ops comprised of Downs syndrome members, to great machinery manufacturers like SACMI, to drug treatment programs like San Patrignano, food co-ops, and the magnificent Ducati motorcycle plant). The remainder of the program takes place at the university, with the extraordinary professors that work with Stefano Zamagni.
Dr Zamagni, who heads up this work at the university, represents Italy’s best and brightest. Leaving Stefano’s busy, cluttered yet ordered office, and strolling the campus or nearby Via Zamboni, the active neighbourhood becomes even more alive because of his presence. There are varying responses to this six-foot-four giant of a man. Prevailing responses convey joy, greetings, friendship, respect, familiarity, a generous reverence and outright love for the man. Like his brethren in the region, Stefano is networked to them all. You can’t help loving the man and the place.
Stefano is Italy’s seminal scholar in his field, mentored as a student at Oxford by a Nobel laureate, a recognition that might well yet be deserved for this extraordinary man.
Stefano, his colleagues and fellow citizens represent a search for quality amidst a life led with a passion that is rare. The Bolognese are part of a community that shares a love of learning, radical politics and a sense of well-being that may well be a model for the world.
For me, Vancouver’s east side became a better place to live after the Italian immigrants arrived. I’ve now found a second home that is showing both me, and maybe all of us, a better way to live.

Bob Williams, a long time former MLA for Vancouver East, now jointly leads a summer educational program at the University of Bologna. www.unibo.it
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