{"id":15981,"date":"2018-11-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/milan-story.html"},"modified":"2018-11-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T00:00:00","slug":"milan-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/en\/milan-story.html","title":{"rendered":"Milan &#8211; story of a business capital of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr>\n<p><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>If I were to ask you what the capital of Italy is, you would not have any trouble answering that it is Rome. And you would be right, of course. However, you might have heard <strong>Milan being referred to as the <em>industrial<\/em>\u00a0or <em>financial<\/em> capital of Italy or even the overall \u201cbusiness\u201d capital<\/strong>. Over the years (or, more precisely, the centuries), Milan has built <strong>a solid entrepreneurial tradition<\/strong> and it is today the one Italian city that feels most like <a href=\"\/unexpected-milan-luxury-destination.html\"><strong>a European capital<\/strong><\/a>. Most international corporations that have offices in Italy picked Milan as their national headquarters and a significant part of the media industry and financial ecosystem of the Country revolve around this incredible city. Milan also has a lively art scene and a well-earned reputation as a hotbed for science and research. What is the origin of this city\u2019s complex and many-layered identity? Let\u2019s take a look at its recent history.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>The Industrial Capital<\/h3>\n<p>During the first Industrial Revolution and later on, all through the heated era of class struggle that followed WWII, Milan\u2019s identity as a city of entrepreneurs was consolidated. <strong>The city\u2019s urban expansion is strictly connected to its industrialization<\/strong>, as a significant part of the workforce shifted from agriculture to heavy industry. At the same time, workers from the south joined the ones flocking to Milan from the surrounding northern regions, to power the assembly lines of thousands of factories producing everything from textiles to engines. <strong>Some of the <a href=\"\/italian-luxury-brands.html\">brand names<\/a> that achieved international success in that period have become part of the city\u2019s own identity and history<\/strong>. As a result, the number of workers employed by those companies rose steadily throughout the first half of the XX Century. As Italy was hit by the oil crisis of the 70s, however, many factories had to downsize and a significant part of the workers that were let go decided to profit from their own skills, by starting <strong>small companies in the local hinterland<\/strong>, thus planting the seed for another great Milanese tradition: small, independent entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5669\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/Milan-black-and-white-bovisa-station.jpg\" alt=\"Milan black and white bovisa station\" width=\"720\" height=\"446\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>The Financial Capital<\/h3>\n<p>This massive shift of resources and workforce did not tarnish Milan\u2019s signature enterprising spirit and, <strong>throughout the second half of the Century, the city discovered its financial vocation<\/strong>, taking advantage of its privileged position close to the heart of Europe. As services gradually took the place of goods as Milan\u2019s primary output, a profitable ecosystem was created for a new form of industry to take over. Slowly but surely, Milan came closer to what it was in the XVIII and XIX century \u2013 and what it stays to this day: <strong>a city of artists and thinkers, of researchers and scientists, of culture, politics, and communication<\/strong>. The vestiges of its glorious industrial past can still be seen in the impressive reclaimed buildings that dot the city and that are currently living new and <a href=\"\/try-one-of-these-3-venues-in-milan-for-your-next-event.html\"><strong>exciting lives as museums, private residences and event venues<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"mks_button mks_button_large squared\" href=\"https:\/\/www.milanvenue.com\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #dd9933\" >Find the perfect venue for your next event!<\/a>\n<h3>Still standing: Milan&#8217;s future<\/h3>\n<p>The whole process that led to the first and second industrial revolution in Milan, of course, was all but painless. Since the first railway was introduced in the XIX Century and factories started cropping up and attracting farm workers, <strong>every step of this evolution has resulted in a traumatic shift<\/strong>. As the countryside was being emptied of workers, a new class of \u201clocal\u201d immigrants (from the rest of Lombardy, but also from Veneto and from the South) struggled to make a living and to integrate in a city that appeared cold and distant, with the middle-classes and the cultural elites that didn\u2019t take well to the newcomers\u2019 attitude and needs. This was before class struggle became fashionable in the 70s, of course. <strong>What really makes Milan unique, however, is its uncommon resilience<\/strong>. The ghost of its class struggle and its industrial past has not been forgotten or hidden: like everything in the history of this city, it is still standing and it constitutes a vital layer of its identity. Iconic places like the <strong>Triennale Museum<\/strong> or the <strong>Fabbrica del Vapore<\/strong> and the famous <strong>Hangar Bicocca<\/strong> are proof of that. As Milan grows, it doesn\u2019t leave anyone or anything behind, it just transforms everything and changes with the times, while remaining uniquely itself.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5670\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/Milan-duomo-rainy.jpeg\" alt=\"Milan duomo rainy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"mks_button mks_button_large squared\" href=\"https:\/\/en.smarteventi.it\/contact_us.html\" target=\"_self\" style=\"color: #FFFFFF; background-color: #dd9933\" >Start planning your next corporate event today!<\/a>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I were to ask you what the capital of Italy is, you would not have any trouble answering that it is Rome. And you would be right, of course. However, you might have heard Milan being referred to as the industrial\u00a0or financial capital of Italy or even the overall \u201cbusiness\u201d capital. Over the years [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":15986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1407,1414],"tags":[1423,1655,1866,1484,1485,1427,1431,1418],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v17.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Milan - story of a business capital of Europe - Il blog di Smart Eventi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over the centuries, Milan has built a solid entrepreneurial tradition and it is today the one Italian city that feels most like a European capital.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/en\/milan-story.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Milan - story of a business capital of Europe - Il blog di Smart Eventi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the centuries, Milan has built a solid entrepreneurial tradition and it is today the one Italian city that feels most like a European capital.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/en\/milan-story.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Il blog di Smart Eventi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-23T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/Milan-torre-velasca.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"730\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"304\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Angela\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Smart eventi srl\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo-smarteventi-2-1.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/logo-smarteventi-2-1.gif\",\"width\":960,\"height\":340,\"caption\":\"Smart eventi srl\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/\",\"name\":\"Il blog di Smart Eventi\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/en\/milan-story.html#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/Milan-torre-velasca.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/Milan-torre-velasca.jpeg\",\"width\":730,\"height\":304,\"caption\":\"Milan torre velasca\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/en\/milan-story.html#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.smarteventi.it\/en\/milan-story.html\",\"name\":\"Milan - 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