Favara is located in Agrigento district, on Sicily’s coast that looks to Morocco. However, the sea is far away. During the nineteenth century sulfur mines constituted the true wealth of the city and the population in ten years increased from seven thousand to twenty thousand inhabitants. The mines have been closed about 40 years ago. In the eighties, mafia made a lot of building speculation, which was fed by public funding arrived for the construction of Furore Dam (never fully finished), that led to a huge growth in the housing capacity of the city. The result is that today Favara is a city of 30,000 inhabitants that could accommodate 90,000.
The historic center is almost totally empty and the houses are near to collapse.
Here, more than in other areas of Sicily, there are no job opportunities and there is a strong tendency of people to go and look for luck and money in the north of Italy. Who has decided to stay has rolled up his sleeves and among a thousand difficulties goes on for himself and his territory, often with excellent results.
