Under the streets of Naples, a social collective bets on locals, culture to help a rough neighbourhood thrive

World The catacombs of San Gennaro are a vast underground network of ancient burial chambers beneath the streets of the Rione Sanità area of Naples. A social co-operative has revived the site, bringing local jobs, a steady draw of tourists and fresh opportunities to the long-neglected neighbourhood in the southern Italian city.(Megan Williams/CBC) The reopening of the catacombs, which are home to some of the earliest Christian paintings in southern Italy, was the first project of a social co-operative called La Paranza.(Megan Williams/CBC) A bridge built in 1810 isolated the Rione Sanità neighbourhood from the rest of Naples.(Megan Williams/CBC) Giada Colasurdo, who works as a guide for the catacombs, grew up in the wealthier Capodimonte neighbourhood that was cut off from the Sanità by the bridge.(Megan Williams/CBC) The Rione Sanità, one of the most isolated and neglected neighbourhoods in Naples, was once synonymous with Camorra clan control, petty crime, poverty and social abandonment.(Megan Williams/CBC) Giuseppe Iacarino, a resident of the Rione Sanità neighbourhood in Naples, Italy, started off doing maintenance work in the Catacombs of San Gennaro before becoming manager of the co-operatively run Locanda del Monacone restaurant nearby.(Megan Williams/CBC) Anna Fava, head of the Naples chapter of Italia Nostra, a cultural preservation organization.(Megan Williams/CBC) Antonio Della Corte, who’s been part of the La Paranza co-op for almost two decades, says that though it provides a sustainable way to develop cultural tourism, the government still needs to regulate short-term rentals.(Megan Williams/CBC) Under the streets of Naples, a social collective bets on locals, culture to help a rough neighbourhood thrive The Catacombs of San Gennaro offer opportunity and hope for the neglected Rione Sanità area of Naples In Naples, miracles are usually measured in drops of blood. Several times a year, crowds pack the ancient southern Italian city’s main cathedral to watch the dried blood of San Gennaro, Naples’ patron saint, in the hope that it will liquefy - a ritual many see as a sign of protection for a metropolis shaped by invasions, plagues and earthquakes. But in the Rione Sanità, one of Naples’ most isolated and neglected neighbourhoods, a quieter, more tangible kind of San Gennaro-linked miracle has been unfolding: cultural heritage turned into local jobs, skills and the steady draw of tourists to the area. One weekday winter morning, in the corner of the café entrance to the Catacombs of San Gennaro, Antonio Aveta, 22, and Giada Colasurdo, 20, sat shoulder to shoulder, reading aloud from a history text about the saint. They were preparing to guide visitors through a vast underground network of ancient burial chambers that for centuries remained largely invisible, even to those who lived just above them. The reopening of the catacombs was the first project of La Paranza, a social co-operative founded in 2006 by parish priest Antonio Alfredo. The name is a Neapolitan term for fishing crew, or close-knit working group. Over time, the group expanded to include after-school programs and locally run co-operative businesses. From after-school program to leading tours As...

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