SPECIAL REPORT     Young Lives

	GUGLIELMO DE' MICHELI for TIME Defiant Renzi says youth promotes fresh idea

*Matteo Renzi

President Of Province Of Florence

Married with a third child on the way, the 31-year-old Tuscan native is already way ahead for his generation. But during a recent battle over garbage management, his opponents brought out a banner reading: RENZI: CUT IT OUT, YOU’RE JUST A KID. “They say I’m arrogant,” he says. “But maybe you have to be.” He feels it’s time the establishment paid attention to the concerns of voters and politicians his age. “Have you seen anyone talking about first mortgages for young couples?” he asks. “Have they talked about reform of universities?” Still, Renzi says he’s always willing to learn from the older generation. When he met Berlusconi for the first time last year, Renzi recalled, the Prime Minister asked him why such a promising young politician was wearing a brown corduroy suit at a public event. Ever since, he laughs, “I’ve been wearing blue suits.”

*Salvatore Lacagnina

Contemporary Art Curator

In his native Sicily, art was all about the past. After earning his degree up north, Lacagnina's eyes were fixed on modern meccas like New York City and Paris. But in 2001, he was able to convince Syracuse officials to open Sicily's first public gallery for contemporary art. "To go in the most unthinkable place started to make sense," he says. Even in the provinces, Italians can't let the past stifle the future.

*Mariangela Potenza

Student

Like her father, the 24-year-old has banked her future on chemistry. But while he labored for 20 years as a factory worker for a chemical company, she is pursuing a master’s degree in art restoration at the University of Florence, learning how to use the latest chemical technology to bring old masterpieces back to life. She hopes the advanced skills will secure her a better livelihood. Back in her hometown of Bernalda, in the impoverished southern region of Basilicata, the chemical plant that employed her dad recently shut down. That means Potenza has to work in a pub and a call center to pay the bills for her advanced degree. But after completing her undergraduate studies, she couldn’t find a job in Italy. “There are actually more opportunities abroad,” she says. “Lots of foreign museums have their own in-house laboratories.” Potenza would prefer to stay in Italy near her family, but she’s worried that, if she wants to help her struggling parents, she’ll have to leave.

*Francesco Billari

Demographer

The 35-year-old professor at Milan’s Bocconi University spends his days poring over depressing data. Too many old people. Not enough working-age folk. A national birthrate stuck at 1.3 children per woman. There is only a 10-year “window of opportunity,” he says, when the country’s leaders could improve the odds by pursuing forward-looking policies like improved child care and child tax credits. Still, Billari is doing his best to reverse the trend: he and his social worker wife, Chiara, are expecting their fourth child. “We decided one at a time,” he said. “If you’re too focused on the costs, you’ll decide not to each time.” But the number of children is also the sum of both parents’ childhood experiences. Mamma Billari was one of six sisters. And Papà? A lonely only child. —With reporting by Francis X. Rocca

*Vincenza Lasala

Unemployed

Sitting on the pink floral spread covering her single bed, the 32-year-old engineer says living with her parents at her age makes her feel “like a potted plant: well taken care of, but no chance to grow.” Sure, there’s Mom’s cooking, and Dad’s pension to cover basic living expenses. Though she’s grateful for the home provided by her postal-worker mother and retired army-officer father, it’s not always easy living with them. “My parents seem to control me more than when I was little,” she says. “At a certain point, I have to live the life of an adult.” But the University of Naples graduate has little choice: she has only found part-time and temporary jobs since earning her degree in mechanical engineering four years ago. Interviews at Fiat, Barilla and scores of smaller companies have all come up empty. Yet from the evidence of the framed diplomas and academic awards hanging in her bedroom, the southerner is well-qualified for her profession. And her father, Angelo Lasala, 62, says he expected Vincenza to be well on her way by now. “I don’t know how she ended up in this situation,” he says. “Maybe she should have studied computers.” So when another interview fails to produce a job offer, the pink bedroom where Vincenza has slept since she was 7 is a “refuge.” But mostly, she says, “I just want to be on my own.”

Posted Sunday, April 2, 2005; 09.48BST

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