A very happy Naples. An investigation against the Gomorrah cliché.

According to certain strange Neapolitan ephemerides, which embellish the chroniclers' tales, the convent complex of Santa Maria la Nova has risen to prominence in just a few days for two very different reasons: the first is the disclosure of further evidence that would locate the remains of Vlad Tepes, the real Count Dracula, hidden in the tomb of his alleged father-in-law Matteo Ferrillo; the second is that on July 7, the ancient Franciscan convent hosted the council of the ANCI , the National Association of Italian Municipalities , chaired by the mayor of Naples, Gaetano Manfredi . And it is the first time that the event has not been held in Rome.

On the eve of the meeting, which concluded with an appeal to the government to ensure financial continuity after the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and guarantee more resources for welfare activities, Princesses Maria Carolina and Maria Chiara of Bourbon, naturally blonde and wearing identical scarlet dresses, had paid a visit to the religious (and perhaps Dracula-esque) complex: a renowned tourist attraction and a subtle yet tenacious link between the former capital's past, its present, and its future. Predicting a rosy future is perhaps exaggerated, or even a bad omen, but the numbers are encouraging: Naples, as it celebrates its 2500th birthday, seems to have definitively emerged from its gray phase. Confindustria also confirmed this, awarding it the title of "Capital of Corporate Culture" for 2025 , a title the city inherited from Turin with a historic reversal. It is the first southern regional capital to receive the recognition: not just a ribbon, but a showcase for development projects in communities and throughout the region. The program developed by the Industrialists' Union of Naples focused on the city's productive and cultural vocation, with events dedicated to fashion, digital transformation, the mechatronics industry, and small businesses. "We wanted to build a lasting path," explains the Union's president, Costanzo Jannotti Pecci, "with a manifesto that becomes a method, vision, and shared platform for the entire country. Business culture is built on ethics, innovation, responsibility, and the future. We want the city to leave a mark that is more than just a celebration, and we are working with local institutions to map out the development plans for Naples and its metropolitan area."

Statistics without rhetoric : GDP per capita (€30,804) is higher than the national average; in the three-year period 2022-24, according to Svimez, cumulative growth in Campania was 5.6 percent, almost double that of the central-northern regions, thanks to a fragmented but dynamic entrepreneurial network. Conversely, Naples' employment rate , at 41 percent, is the lowest among Italy's major cities, and the wealth gap between neighborhoods remains significant (Chiaia beats Forcella four to one). "Lights and shadows," to use the stereotypical economic report duo. The former, however, clearly prevail. Dracula also contributes, that is, the smaller tourist attractions that are multiplying alongside the major traditional destinations : the Pompeii excavations, the Royal Palace of Caserta, the National Archaeological Museum, the Royal Palace, the Capodimonte Museum, the Certosa di San Martino. It's no surprise that almost all of the local GDP, over 87 percent, comes from services, nor that half of the accommodation facilities (out of approximately six thousand total) are represented by the Airbnb circuit, which generates almost a quarter of the tourist tax revenue.

The municipality is addressing overtourism with a plan that will curb the proliferation of chip shops and pizzerias in the historic center.

Culture is a food source, even literally : the City Council has just addressed overtourism with a Commerce Plan that will curb the proliferation of chip shops and pizzerias in the historic center, following the closure of so many artisan workshops and bookstores. The erosion of the urban fabric has been the paradoxical price paid for the restoration of abandoned churches, the opening of precious tiny museums (from typographic art to the Hypogeum of Santa Luciella), and the lure of already famous attractions like the nativity scene in San Gregorio Armeno, where even the gaze grows melancholic at the growing diffusion of junk. Those who remember the city of decades past, however, can be more forgiving, because their memories hark back to the darkened decumani, when, leaving trattorias where there was always a free table, one had to dodge the large "whores" who feasted on the abandoned garbage.

It was a season of artistic flourishes but a tourist desert, the season of the first two football championships, so different from the third and fourth that the slogan "Again" no longer marks a "redemption," but rather an economic and sporting confirmation in which Napoli joins forces with Naples. The city is "no longer," in the mayor's words, "a passing fad," even if now the primary priority is the restyling of the Maradona Stadium with the reopening of the "third tier" to ensure it doesn't miss the chance to host the Euro 2032 finals . The City will have to persuade the FIGC and UEFA delegations, expected at Palazzo San Giacomo later this month, with the project and the related financial plan.

To host the Euro 2032 finals, the Maradona's restyling will have to persuade the FIGC and UEFA, which are expected within this month at Palazzo San Giacomo.

Meanwhile, a word has faded in favor of another that has become more widespread in global public opinion: "whining" is a much less pronounced word than "trust." While the yellow sail of Scampia has also been completely demolished, the sails of the America's Cup are emerging, which will compete in the thirty-eighth edition in the waters of Partenope in 2027 , with a lasting economic impact estimated at one billion euros by the Minister of Sport, Andrea Abodi. It will also be an opportunity to enhance the coastline overlooking the "small and domestic sea" that so deeply touched Giuseppe Marotta and to breathe new life into Bagnoli. If expectations are met, we will once again be able to enjoy that pleasant place, as in the paintings of Eduardo Dalbono, before the Nitti law and the heavy industrialization launched at the dawn of the last century. The Italsider blast furnaces depicted in Nanni Loy's film "Mi manda Picone" blazed there until 1990. "Once the work is completed," Manfredi assured at the America's Cup presentation conference, "Bagnoli will be beautiful: it will combine sport, tourism, and services, there will be public access to the sea, a large park that will also serve the city, a large green lung."

A new way of teaching university. Bagnoli hosts the Campania NewSteel incubator to support the creation and development of startups.

Today, Bagnoli is home to the Campania NewSteel incubator , promoted by Città della Scienza and the Federico II University to support the creation and development of startups. The latest initiative concluded at the end of June with the eighth edition of The Big Hack, a marathon of ideas dedicated to innovative technological projects and the use of artificial intelligence across nine challenges (one, proposed by the Clara-Cisco Consortium, specifically concerned digital solutions for the 2027 America's Cup). "We often forget that Naples has a long history of innovation in the broadest sense of the term: culture, music, art, science, and education," reminds us engineer Giorgio Ventre, professor at Federico II, administrator of Campania NewSteel, and scientific director of the Apple Developer Academy, established on the San Giovanni a Teduccio campus, on the eastern outskirts, using facilities provided by Federico II in October ten years ago. "At the heart of the Mediterranean, Naples has always been a natural crossroads of cultures, so I wouldn't just celebrate Parthenope's 2,500th anniversary, but I would project it into the future: how to strengthen this role and with what commitment to the world. I hope for a boundless ambition, because it is justified by a history that must continue." The academies established in San Giovanni a Teduccio have grown to sixteen, with approximately 3,500 students trained since the initiative's inception in annual classes of 300, nearly half of whom come from abroad. "It's a new way of teaching: the university provides the space, and companies cover the costs of the courses with a streamlined approach, focused on creativity and workshops, without the need for hyperspecialization. Therefore, in the Artificial Intelligence Academy, we also have professors of law and philosophy and students of humanities and design, who retain ownership of the apps they propose and develop here. By tracking their subsequent careers, we know that they return to their studies or already start the job they dream of," Ventre continues.

Those who have studied at an academy return home, whether in a European country, India, Mexico, or Indonesia, but retain a connection to the city. They spontaneously become spokespeople: "Let's take Silicon Valley as an example. Its success has relied on an added value," Ventre observes, "which is the cultural openness and attractiveness of the locations, because the San Francisco Bay Area is as beautiful as Naples. Here, the food is good, there's art, culture, and human warmth, even if we haven't yet equipped ourselves for a more welcoming environment: in hospitals, it's difficult to find a nurse who speaks English, and the staff of a multinational that opens a research laboratory would like international schools for their children. It's true that our projects have relied on the support of the Municipality and the Region, with the rapid disbursement of funds and scholarships, but it's time to move from enthusiasm to managing day-to-day life."

We're back to the hackneyed "light and shadow" equation: on the one hand, the San Giovanni a Teduccio Campus and the universities rewarded by the loyalty of their students (87 percent of Campanians enroll in the region); on the other, the percentage of NEETs, those neither employed nor educated, approaches 30 percent, and the school dropout rate is still high in some neighborhoods. Not out of necessity: the street urchins carrying a coffee tray or forced to commit crimes for food, as Giuseppe Marrazzo famously recounted in 1979 in the television investigation "Sciuscià 80," are a thing of the past. Today's armed thugs orbit the Camorra's cultural enclave by deliberate choice; that is, they are the children (and grandchildren) of the petty lawlessness flaunted on TikTok and against which Green Party MP Francesco Borrelli theatrically rages on social media like a regular Duck Avenger. There are even those who vandalized the plaque dedicated to the young musician Giovanbattista Cutolo—the victim of a petty criminal raised in that twisted mythology—which was restored last July 9th in Piazza Municipio with a ceremony attended by Manfredi. Despite its scars, however, the image of Naples, now celebrating its 2,500th birthday, rejects Gomorrah's narrative mannerisms, producing quality music, cinema, and theater while awaiting a literature that tells its story as it is, after Elena Ferrante's great tetralogy, perhaps more appreciated elsewhere than in her hometown (where crime novels and noir continue to churn out serialized panzarotti).

Whoopi Goldberg has been announced as a cast member of "A Place in the Sun," the record-breaking soap opera that has surpassed 6,700 episodes in its twenty-ninth season.

Meanwhile, Whoopi Goldberg has been announced as a cast member of "A Place in the Sun," the record-breaking soap opera that has surpassed 6,700 episodes in its twenty-ninth season. The actress is another attraction in herself for tourists, who gorge on street food but also visit the Pio Monte della Misericordia and the Sansevero Chapel. After a period of descamisado populism, Naples's pendulum has swung back toward the side of the Enlightenment, with its sleeves rolled up: in the latest survey by Noto Sondaggi for Il Sole 24 Ore, Manfredi remains third in popularity among Italian mayors after nearly four years in office. Perhaps because Naples is slowly becoming more and more like itself, and those who dream of a Zurich under Vesuvius will never find it. Antonio Genovesi explained with humorous gravity in his Academic Letters: “These crashes, which frighten us lazy people, bring happiness to people and cities. We have a body that is healthier and more robust when it is most in motion: a mind that shines when it moves ceaselessly from thought to thought, from form to form, from desire to desire, from hope to hope. Inaction is the death of the body, and it is the file of the soul: movement, turmoil, flux, noise, confusion: new cares, new thoughts, new loves, nothing stable: this is the life of people; and this is the beauty of cities. You spend centuries there, always experiencing unexpected novelties. Nothing can bore you, where every day is new: nothing can dampen the body, where if you don't move, you are swept along by the current of business.”

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