MAC - Monterusciello Agro City

Contracting Party: European Union through the initiative "Urban Innovative Action (UIA)"

Period: 2017-2021

URL: www.macpozzuoli.eu

Description:

The MAC project seeks to reduce urban poverty in the neighborhood of Monterusciello, in the City of Pozzuoli, where poverty is understood in the social and economic sense and within the physical environment.

The proposal is designed to trigger a process of economic, entrepreneurial and social development, together with the improvement of the urban environment. Monterusciello is a relatively new large public housing district with 20,000 residents with low-income, a high level of unemployment, and characterised by large unused spaces. Problematic social conditions are combined with a difficult urban environment, in particular for the character of emptiness, anonymity and decay of the common spaces. 30 hectares of Municipal open areas will be transformed into farmland, developed with the innovative techniques of permaculture (organic intensive agriculture) in order to enhance an economic process for urban growth as a mean to fight poverty.

The project has three pillars:

• implementation of agriculture through innovative permaculture;
• improvement of the urban environment;
• encouragement of entrepreneurship and employment.

The MAC project will create a new agro-urban landscape which will radically transform the character of the neighborhood:  a landscape made of urban areas and agriculture land connected by a productive thread, where the the agriculture will provide work opportunities, training and production to the City, and where the City will benefit of the agriculture areas as gardens, thanks to innovative techniques which will also increase the vegetation.

Together with the architectural, urban, landscape and agriculture investments, the project will: establish 1 cooperative company, train 50 people in the permaculture agriculture, 50 people in ethical production and rural marketing, 60 people in Business Innovation and start-up. The project will also award 3 start-up companies.

The project Consortium, coordinated by the City of Pozzuoli, is constituted by the following partners: University of Salerno, Coldiretti Napoli, Confagricoltura Napoli, Agrocultura, L'iniziativa - Association for social promotion, and Fondazione FORMIT.

FORMIT will coordinate the entire training programme, and will be also specifically in charge for the Business Innovation and Start-up training programme; FORMIT will also support the coordinator in the management of the project and will be contributing to the communication activities of the project itself.