Bridge to Sicily Revived, and Molise Fears Being Left Further Behind

A Roman dream of linking Sicily to the mainland has been revived by officials, according to the Guardian, which reports that plans for a bridge over the Strait of Messina are back on the table after more than 2,000 years of proposals. The Guardian notes that the project has been dismissed as unworkable by critics and has drawn protests from locals who question its cost and feasibility. For a region like Molise, the news lands less as a feat of engineering than as another reminder of how national attention flows toward the grand gesture while the deep South waits for the ordinary infrastructure that never arrives.

The Guardian's report traces the idea to the Romans, who first conceived of spanning the narrow channel that separates the Mediterranean's largest island from the Italian peninsula. The revival, the paper says, comes despite long-standing claims that the bridge is unworkable and despite opposition from residents who fear the environmental and social costs. Seen from Campobasso, the debate over the Messina Strait is a distant argument about a different South — one that commands headlines and state investment, while the smaller, emptier regions of the interior are left to count their losses.