Forsaken Village on Italy’s Coast Tells Tale of a Paradise Lost<br />20 Miles Castel Volturno ITALY CAMPANIA REGION Villaggio Coppola Naples ITALY DETAIL Gulf of Naples SICILY Mediterranean Sea<br />20 Miles ITALY Castel Volturno CAMPANIA REGION Villaggio Coppola Naples Gulf of Naples Mediterranean Sea MAY 18, 2017<br />Salvatore, 40, a house painter, and his partner, Maria, 41, a cleaning woman, moved into the village<br />from Castel Volturno’s historical center after they found the rents there to be too high.<br />Text by GAIA PIANIGIANIMAY 17, 2017<br />VILLAGGIO COPPOLA, Italy — When Villaggio Coppola was built in the 1960s along the western Mediterranean<br />coast of Italy, just north of Naples, the aspiration was of a utopian residential area.<br />Around 12,000 apartments, along the seaside and in the nearby town of Castel Volturno, were built in<br />violation of zoning laws, at a time when local authorities ignored development along the coast.<br />Today they live in Parco Saraceno with three of their four children in an apartment<br />that overlooks the local soccer fields and Villaggio Coppola in the distance.<br />The section originally designed for wealthier residents, Parco Saraceno, stands as a ghost town, including a now vacant<br />but once popular hotel built to resemble a castle, a remnant of the village’s grand ambitions.
