Local Leaders Criticize Development Threatening Riva and Arco Shops

More and more often, merchants and artisans active in Riva and Arco are protesting against the difficulties they face regarding access to the town centers and parking for their customers.

As if that weren’t enough, the opening of new shopping centers along the road connecting Arco and Riva worsens this situation, drawing more and more customers away from the shops and artisan workshops of the two Garda locations.

Political Interventions and Criticisms of the Local Government

According to Giorgio Perini, secretary of the Riva branch of Lega Nord, who has heard the complaints of local small entrepreneurs—”a truly unsustainable situation has been created.”

“The governing left-wing parties managing the cities of Riva and Arco,” Perini commented in a statement released yesterday, “seem oblivious to the situation that is de facto impoverishing the historic centers of both towns, draining the social fabric of these communities and touching on the very delicate issue of livability for the more vulnerable members of society: what will happen when all the shops and artisan workshops currently located near homes or in their immediate vicinity close?”

“And if someone accidentally forgets to buy bread or milk, what should they do? Take the car or the bus to the nearest shopping center, where only then can essential shops remain open?”

This is not how you manage a community. The left should stop unfairly penalizing those who persist in keeping their businesses open in the historic centers.

Focusing solely on the monoculture of tourism is a shortsighted choice and one that risks causing irrevocable future harm. Before it’s too late, we need to change course and provide concrete opportunities for those who live or work in the historic centers of Riva and Arco to continue doing so, blocking the development of shopping centers and the closing of historic districts.

Lega Nord of Arco and Riva will undertake all political actions necessary to prevent these villages from turning into deserts.”