With a Deep Dig Into Its Past, Perugia Built an Energy-Saving Future
Perugia, Italy turned its challenging geography to its advantage to show how even a small city can reap benefits of investment in smart transport and pedestrian-friendly streets.
It's 7 p.m., and the evening passeggiata (a cross between a walk and a parade) in Perugia (map) is in full swing. All the Italian clichés apply: strolling teenagers eating gelato, married couples pushing strollers and greeting friends. Professors—this is a university city—amble up and down the Corso Vannucci greeting each other and arguing politics.
The conversations—whether they are giddy, loving or heated—echo with remarkable clarity off the surrounding medieval stone facades, undisturbed by the sound of internal combustion or diesel engines.
The Corso, the main drag of the Umbria region's capital city, styles itself as Perugia's living room rather than as a thoroughfare for motorists. So as the setting sun turns the buildings amber, tourists and tired office workers
