Check Out the Italian Town of Candela: Where the Mayor Will Pay You to Live
(CNN) — The mayor of the Italian town of Candela has come up with a practical solution to boost its dwindling population: paying people to become residents. Nicola Gatta wants the small medieval town in Puglia to shine like it did in the 1990s, when more than 8,000 people lived there. Today, there are just 2,700 residents.
So, to recover the town's lost grandeur, Mayor Gatta is offering up to 2,000 euros ($2,350) to encourage people to relocate.
Candela natives are open and welcoming, happy to rub shoulders with the few newcomers living in town.
Gatta's most notable innovation is the glittering House of Santa Claus, which tells the story of the inspiration for the Christmas legend, Saint Nicholas, whose remains are thought to be entombed in the nearby town of Bari.
He pays actors dressed as Santa Claus and his elves to take over a three-story building dating back to the 1600s for an entire month -- much to the joy of local children.
Some of Puglia's top beaches are just an hour drive away from the town, while the "Trasonna," a 35-centimeter-wide alley has turned into a tourist attraction.
Proud locals claim it's the most narrow alley in Italy.
"Life quality rocks here. We haven't had one crime in 20 years," boasts Bascianelli.
So this popped up in the news a couple days ago, basically a story about a mayor paying people to move to his town in Italy. This is a tough one, and I’m torn. But let me be absolutely clear to start, Mr. Mayor, I'll be honest, it sounds like your town sucks. I do understand a desperation hail-mary move like this because, hey, nobody wants to be mayor of a ghost town. I never played the Sims, but I imagine being mayor of this town is similar what it’s like if you let your Sim die… just you and your can of mountain dew, watching over a desolate, empty house that used to be a bustling hub of pixelated life.
I will say, every once in a while you read about a town that has “figured out how to live forever”, and you’ve got like a population of forty people over a hundred years old. I feel like Italy has a million of these towns, just full of cracking old people guzzling red wine and olive oil, just shooting the shit about shit really escalated quickly in WWI. Well, this is the downside, Italy. You find a way to keep people alive forever? You better be ready to accept the fact that you’re going to have a few towns full of weird old people with weird fingernails who like weird shit.
Also, how about this guy boasting about no crime in the last 20 years? I’m from a pretty small town in Vermont (you know the one street, one church, one general store type), and the last crime we had? Somebody set all of the police cars on fire. I shit you not. Somebody crept into the parking lot of the police department after 10PM (breaking the cardinal rule of no committing crimes in rural areas after dark) and set all of the cruisers ablaze. Now, is that kind of a crazy move? For sure. But if your Italian town is making my Vermont village look like the setting of the next Mad Max movie then, dare I say it, your town is certifiably boring as fuck! You need a little crime to keep people on their toes. Crime says a place is worth fighting for. Struggling to keep food on the table? Gotta steal to stay where you are. It says a lot about a place that, when the going gets tough, people would rather just move or die of old age than commit one lousy crime.
THAT BEING SAID, I live in this fucking shithole of a city and nobody’s paying me a dime for it. If I can tolerate walking through human piss on the regular, watch the homeless kick strollers and then die right in front of me, AND THEN navigate the 7th circle of hell that is Koreatown for free (a blog for another time), then yes, sure I could willingly dress up as Santo Clauso for a couple of elderly parades.
In fact, I’ve got a solution to Mayor Gatta’s marketing problems right here. I don’t know how much it costs. I don’t know what it will take. But when the downtown 4/5 train leaves Grand Central at 6PM packed to the fucking walls with miserable New Yorkers, hating every essence of their existence, you make sure that you advertise ON EVERY GODDAMN INCH OF THAT TRAIN.
You take them at their most vulnerable- that moment when the feeble masses most crave a fresh start, “Hey, notice how that old man’s backpack full of weirdly pointy objects keeps jabbing your ribs? And do you see how you keep pointing your nose to the ceiling, hoping to catch the one last gasp of fresh air on this train car that is death-incarnate? How would you like to be paid to move somewhere where you’d never have to interact with a single person ever again?”
That’s fucking marketing.
I mean, I literally had the thought the other day: if somebody paid me first month’s rent and promised me an apartment and job I didn’t hate, then I would move anywhere. You name it: Idaho, North Dakota, Uruguay, don’t care, doesn’t matter, I’d move there. So, Mr. Mayor, congratulations are in order – Italy beats Idaho and you’ve found your perfect demographic. I will take cash or check and I will appreciate the hell out of your fifteen-inch wide alley. Because yes, you Roman shmucks, I will take your Italian shillings, but no, I sure as hell won’t take your metric system.
Let’s go New York; let’s make Candela miserable again.
