WHAT FUTURE FOR MONFALCONE
by PAOLA BARBAN
Beyond the controversy over schools: work, immigration, housing and the new industrial transformation of Monfalcone
In recent days, Monfalcone has returned to the center of the national news for the controversy concerning schools and the presence of students of foreign origin. But reducing the Monfalcone affair to the school issue alone means looking at only a part of a much deeper transformation that has been affecting the city for years. Monfalcone is now known even beyond national borders for the dimensions assumed by the migration phenomenon. The presence of foreign citizens, more than 30 percent of the population, is closely linked to the transformation of the local labor market and, in particular, to the growth of the shipbuilding system. A city between Gorizia and Trieste has thus become an observatory of a transformation that concerns not only the economy, but also the social fabric, the real estate market, public services and urban identity itself.
A case study also abroad
The Monfalcone affair has long attracted the attention of the international press. In 2024, the Financial Times and the Guardian dedicated extensive reports to the city, recounting the presence of the large Bengali and Muslim community, its link with shipbuilding and the conflict with the municipal administration over places of worship. Euronews also subsequently dedicated a report to the situation in Monfalcone, describing it as an emblematic case of the relationship between immigration, work and politics. There are numerous testimonies from workers who complain of difficult conditions and a significant distance between the value of the professionalism employed in the construction of large ships and the economic and contractual recognition that, according to some workers, is reserved for them. A phrase attributed to one of them effectively sums up this feeling: “They bring us here to build beautiful ships where people go on vacation, but when they have to recognize your rights, they want you to be a slave.” It is a complaint that deserves to be heard and verified, because it poses a broader question: how much of the international success of the Italian shipbuilding industry has also been built through a progressive compression of labor costs?
The globalization of shipbuilding
The international competitiveness of the shipbuilding industry is the result of many factors: technology, organization, industrial capacity, specialization of the workers and the international dimension of the groups. But the transformation of the supply chain has also produced a growing articulation of work and a strong presence of contractors and subcontractors. This process was not born today but dates back to the nineties: observing the transformations of the sector up close, I had the opportunity to meet Carlo Ripa di Meana, who had come to Monfalcone to collect information on the delocalization and transformation of employment contracts in an increasingly globalized system.
A city that has changed along with his work
Monfalcone has become one of the most important industrial realities in the area thanks to shipbuilding. But the growth of the sector has not prevented a progressive impoverishment of other parts of the urban economy either because of low wages, or because of the question of relocating money to the country of origin. Over the years, the city center has seen the closure of numerous historic commercial activities, with a rotation of only ethnic shops, with products far from the purchasing goods of the Monfalconesi who have seen the city center and the traditional balance between industry, small business and commerce gradually impoverished.
The big forgotten problem: where do the new workers live?
Monfalcone, already in the early twentieth century, had begun to develop urbanistically according to its industrial vocation. The growth of the city was not only spontaneous: new housing settlements were designed and built for the different components of the world of work, from workers to employees to managers. A significant example was the real workers’ citadel of Panzano, designed to offer accommodation to those who arrived in the city to work in the new industries. This housing structure was also flanked by two hotels intended to provide initial accommodation for workers coming from outside, waiting for them to find a stable housing solution.
Today, the arrival of thousands of foreign workers would have required an adequate housing response, however, a significant part of the problem has been left to the free market, without a public or private system sufficiently structured to accompany the arrival of such a large population. The result has been a rental market subjected to strong pressure, with overcrowding and problematic situations within many condominiums, due to habits very distant from ours and cases of homes transformed for activities incompatible with their destination. Among the most singular episodes, some finds of chicken farms inside homes are also mentioned. Reportedly, six interventions related to situations of this type have been carried out in 2025. Cases of apartments have also been reported in which some rooms have been transformed into small vegetable gardens, with problems of water infiltration in the apartments below.
These are episodes that, precisely because they are exceptional, cannot be automatically used to describe an entire community. But they still represent an alarm bell on the need to govern the housing phenomenon rather than suffer it.
The burden that falls on condominiums
Then there is a less spectacular, but perhaps even more important problem: that of condominium expenses (buildings with centralized boilers), given that when in a building a part of the condominiums does not regularly pay their dues, the cost of arrears inevitably ends up falling on the other owners. In Monfalcone this problem takes on a particular delicacy, because many condominiums in the center are also inhabited by elderly people and widows of asbestos workers, people who already have a social and family history marked by industrial work behind them. The question, therefore, is not only how to integrate the newcomers but also how to prevent the costs of social transformation from being unloaded on the most fragile sections of the population already resident, given the presence of energy-intensive buildings from the 60s with centralized boilers and high expenses. Due to these economic shortcomings, many property maintenance activities are no longer carried out, leaving more and more properties in the center to deteriorate.
From Bangladesh to Monfalcone
The international nature of the story emerged once again on May 5, 2025, when Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi met the head of the Bangladeshi government, Muhammad Yunus, in Dhaka. The meeting also had an impact on the political debate in Monfalcone, giving rise to a back-and-forth between local politicians. This is not a minor detail. It shows how much the reality of Monfalcone is now connected to dynamics that go far beyond the city limits.
A new variable: the demography of 2050
What makes the Monfalcone case even more interesting today are the new demographic forecasts. In 2026, Istat published the new municipal demographic forecasts 2025-2050, processed on the basis of the population as of 1 January 2025: the data concern the 7,896 Italian municipalities over 5,000 inhabitants. However, Istat points out that, especially in the long term and in small territories, these are forecast scenarios to be read with caution: they are built on the basis of certain assumptions regarding fertility, survival and migration. According to the new projections, the city could reach about 38,000 inhabitants in 2050. The figure has also been highlighted by the local press, which points out that Monfalcone could become the most populous municipality in the province, surpassing Gorizia and in sharp contrast to the entire Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The regional picture drawn up by Istat therefore shows a dynamic in which Monfalcone could represent a significant exception to the general demographic trend of the territory. This means that the city could be faced with an only apparent paradox: while a substantial part of Friuli Venezia Giulia faces the problem of depopulation and aging, Monfalcone could continue to grow thanks to its ability to attract a working-age population.
But what work will there be in 2050?
And this is where a variable that until a few years ago seemed to belong to science fiction comes into play: humanoid robotics. It will be very interesting to understand what the impact of artificial intelligence and humanoid robots will be on ship construction. The question is no longer purely theoretical. Experiments are already underway in various industrial sectors and international forecasts on the spread of humanoids have become extremely ambitious. An often cited figure is the one processed by UBS: about 2 million humanoid robots at work by 2035, with a growth that, in the scenario indicated by the bank, could lead to about 300 million units by 2050. Of course, these are predictions and not a certain figure for the future. The size of the phenomenon is however sufficient to pose a very concrete question for a city like Monfalcone. Already now inside the factory of large ships there are robot dogs, used to control some processes. If a significant part of the activities currently carried out manually on construction sites could be progressively automated, what would happen to the employment model that has attracted thousands of workers here in recent decades? And above all: what would happen to a city that simultaneously increases its population and reduces the amount of human labor needed in some of its main industrial activities?
For years, the problem of shipbuilding has been described above all as a problem of finding labor. However, if robotics and artificial intelligence succeed in replacing a significant part of repetitive, heavy or dangerous activities, the problem could radically change its nature. It is not certain that robots simply cause a net destruction of jobs. They could create new professions, modify existing ones, increase productivity and make it economically convenient to bring certain processes back to Europe. But they could also reduce the demand of certain categories of workers. Today we do not yet know which of the two effects will prevail, nor in what timeframe. Humanoid technology is still in a development phase and presents important problems of cost, reliability, safety and the ability to operate in real industrial environments. However, it is clear that the discussion on the future of Monfalcone can no longer be limited to the question: how many workers do construction sites need? The opposite question should also begin to be asked: which workers will construction sites need when an increasing part of the activities will be carried out by machines equipped with artificial intelligence?
Serbia has already entered the new phase
A concrete signal comes from Serbia, where on August 29, 2026, the first Serbian facility dedicated to the mass production of humanoid robots, built by Minth in collaboration with AGIBOT, was inaugurated in Šabac. The first phase of the investment is indicated at 20 million euros, while a total investment of up to 200 million euros is planned for the subsequent robotics industrial park in Inđija. The expected production capacity when fully operational reaches up to 20 thousand humanoid robots and quadruped robots per year. It is an interesting example because it shows how robotics is not just a technology that will be used in factories: it is itself becoming an industrial sector capable of attracting investment, creating new supply chains and changing the European production geography. And there is a further element that deserves attention: the robots produced in Serbia are also destined for European markets: how will it change them?
I conclude with a post published in the Facebook group “Sei di Monfalcone se e dintorni” and, beyond personal opinions, I think he has grasped the crux of the problem very well.
Monfalcone has not become fragile simply because more people have arrived, nor because the people of Monfalcone have become racist. It has become fragile because demographic, social and economic change has taken place very quickly, while those meeting points that for decades had favored integration have disappeared: a common language, shared work rules, school and places of sociality. When these bridges fail, people naturally tend to look for their own community and their own networks. So, instead of building a larger community, there is a risk of creating several that live next to each other, practically two Monfalcones. And this is precisely the point: living and working in the same city does not necessarily mean being a community. To be one, you have to meet, get to know each other, communicate and participate together in the life of the territory.
I believe that civil society has understood the crux of the problem and, as in many other cases, is ahead of politics.