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Comment by santiagobasulto | Hacker News Reader

I moved to Italy 5 months ago (and got my Citizenship through my great grandfather). I live in a small town (~4k people). These homes are usually in very bad conditions; there's shitty internet and heating.

PS: If you have italian ancestors and are interested in getting your citizenship let me know, I'm writing a blog post with my experience so far :)

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There's also the prolific government corruption, endemic organized crime, and an aging population which brings a whole suite of sociological problems (conservative politics and social structures, poor social services for anyone not a senior, the younger generation will be unable to support the needs of the retired/elderly generation so economic collapse is inevitable.)

Meanwhile the police are driving around in lambos (yes, they're "donated"; the exorbitant maintenance / fuel / tire costs are not.)

Whenever a country's young people are not sticking around, that's a sign things are fucked. These people want to "fix" things by attracting people with money, because they don't want to fix the actual problems with their country.

in the US midwest: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-census-illin...

in the great plains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_the_Great_Plai...

So what is Italy’s main economy at this point, just tourism? I was also under the impression the a large number of immigrants are moving there to do all the odd jobs.

A lot of people get the idea that Italy is poor and only running on tourism and olive oil from popular media, but it's actually a complex economy with lots of high tech exports. The biggest exports are medical and engineering products[0]. There's a lot of problems to be sure, but it's still a competitive, high tech economy, especially in the north.

[0]https://oec.world/en/profile/country/ita/

I believe Northern Italy has a good economy, the South Seems to be where the issues are.

The GDP per capita in Northern Italy is in general over or around 30k€; in Southern Italy below or around 20k€.

Italy is a big exporter of mechatronic products. It is the second ( or third depending on sources) manufacturing economy in Europe just after Germany. Its engineering culture has always been very strong and will stay strong for a long time to come.

One day I noticed nearly all of my food comes from Italy. They are also famous for clothes, and that seems to hold true as well - my best jacket is italian.

Here's a visualization of Italy's exports:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/It...

Ice hockey fans take note: this includes Zamboni! Or, used to — not up on the modern lore.

I suggest you take a look at the "black marble" (Earth at night from space), in the European area. You will see that together with the extended megalopolis Lille-Antwerpen-Liège up to the Bonn-Duisburg-Dortmund aggregations, the most noticeable extended megalopolis is the Padanian valley. It is not tourism to drive that.

Who are you to make such claims ? Are you an Italian, do you live in Italy? Your claims seem just cliche rather than based on actual arguments. I always understood that HN audience was against these kind of posts.

Corruption in Italy is not everywhere, and organized crime is only present and vocal in some areas.

Lamborghini from time to time apparently donates a few vehicles for service - to be used as an alternative to helicopters when feasible.

Young people are exactly the demographic that less probably will want to remain in the remote corners of the territory, with probably less service than one drugstore and a church - those places in which more easily these special properties are for sale.

So what you’re saying is there’s a market for innovative ISPs and HVAC installers?

from the article it sounds like the market is too small to be profitable

As an italian whonis very familiar with that kind of situa... good luck with that.

Are you going to run into extra-legal problems?

My wife is starting to go through this, would love to learn about your experience and any tips you can share.

> PS: If you have italian ancestors and are interested in getting your citizenship let me know, I'm writing a blog post with my experience so far :)

I am very interested in the citizenship process.

> If you have italian ancestors

This is key. I was born in Italy, but to American parents living abroad — and I don't have any Italian ancestors. I don't qualify for Italian citizenship, because Italy is jus sanguinis, not jus soli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

Good job keeping me out, Italy.

How long have you lived in Italy? If you were born there it seems that three years of stay are enough to qualify for citizenship:

https://www.inps.it/pages/standard/51985

Though I'm guessing you've probably spent much more time than me researching this already so this might not apply. Are you back in the US?

Why do you feel you should quality for Italian citizenship, just because you happened to be born there?

What could justify citizenship beyond an accident of birth?

Deliberate birth?

Some kind of permanent and meaningful relationship with the country, beyond the fact that your parents happened to be located there when you were delivered.

In some Countries (e.g. the USA) it works that way.

The rest of the world (probably 130 countries) is jus sanguinis. The Americas (something like 30 countries) are the anomalies.

Why should you have citizenship just because you were born there?

Where I live (Canada) it's jus soli and there's an entire birth tourism business because of it. Foreigners give birth here just to give their children citizenship without ever contributing.

Most of the world is jus sanguinis.

Also, you could have obtained Italian citizenship by staying until you were 18.

exactly why should anyone has citizenship just because they're born in a place and never left

Well citizenship as a concept (still) exists because people cost the government money. There's also externalities associated with letting people in/out. Also because of reasons you can't leave someone stateless, and a lot of citizenship is based on that too.

> Why should you have citizenship just because you were born there?

More of a claim than if your great great grandfathers second cousins babysitters dog once visited on holiday, which seems to the be the basis that many Americans use when they say "I'm Irish".

Most African Americans have even less ties to Africa, so why are they still called "African-"?

Are there local tradespeople available to do renovations?

My pet rant is that once you are in a rural picturesque location, you get hit with all the regulation, bureaucracy and skill shortages

+1 Interested in hearing about your experience getting citizenship.

From what I've read most of the 'homes' are basically a brick/stone shell, one would easily expect to spend 80,000-100,000 (in euros) to make them habitable.

Which part of Italy? What's your experience like with the people? How are taxes working out for you (assuming you're a US Citizen)?

I'm JUST getting started talking to "Comercialisti" (accountants) about taxes so I don't have a full picture yet.

People are great. First day we were here they were already inviting us to have launch. It's a small town though.

I was wondering if you were in the North or South. I read some great things about Turin and Florence and surrounding towns and I wanted to get a perspective from someone who was on the ground.

You can expect the opening paragraphs of the article ("over 30 people stopped to help...") to be in general representative (with large individual variations).

What's your contact info? Grazie.

And I believe you're responsible of renovating these houses.

May I ask in which region you live?

I'm in Piedmont, 20 minutes away from Pian del Re, close to the France boarder (~1.5hr from Turin in the other direction)

Do not miss gorging on blueberries and in general the woodland berries of that valley...

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