The Dynamism of Milan in a Map Created by the Bocconi Community

Students, professors and researchers of Bocconi University join their forces to map the city of Milan and describe the cultural dynamism that characterizes it. They all met yesterday to define the guidelines of the project, which is called MapMI: "This is a shared research project, open to the whole Bocconi community, which starts from the identification of all the key places in the cultural evolution of the city of Milan and which has as its final objective the creation of a database accessible not only to the university community, but also to the citizens", explains Paola Dubini, Director of the Bachelor in Economics for Arts, Culture and Communication and Scientific Director of this initiative.

The places that will be "mapped" are diverse: art galleries, theaters, cinemas, literary cafes, clubs, vintage shops, up to more hybrid aggregation centers, which are increasingly widespread in the city and organize so many different kinds of activities and which make them hard to categorize. "We will include all these elements because the actors who contribute to the cultural evolution of the urban fabric are heterogeneous, reason why the database that we intend to develop wants to offer a precise image of the city of Milan, which is interactive and constantly evolving at the same time, like the city itself," says Caterina Laurenzi, a Management student who has just finished writing her dissertation on the theme of gentrification. "Moreover, the beauty of the maps is that they are never neutral, they always tell us what its author wants us to discover".

The work is not limited to the identification of places, but intends to continue its comprehensive tale of the Milanese territory: "We will split ourselves into work groups, and each group will have to answer increasingly specific questions, such as defining a hybrid or independent space, so as to arrive at elaborating more refined reflections of our city", says Dubini. "This work is very important," adds Caterina, "because if we want to take concrete action on our city we must first of all study and understand it thoroughly. That's why MapMI is an excellent starting point".