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TARANTO, ITALY - 22 FEBRUARY 2018: Luca Greco, an unemployed 30-years old living with his parents in Tamburi, the working-class district adjacent the ILVA steel mill, poses for a portrait at the Mini Bar in Taranto, Italy, on February 22nd 2018.

Luca Greco has worked occasionally in call centers for a minimum salary, but hasn't had a job since 2013. His 65 years-old father is unemployed since 2003 and his mother works as a care-giver. He lives with his parents and 13 years-old brother. "I absolutely don't see a future in Taranto or in Italy. If I leave Tamburi, I will leave the country. I see a dark, tragic future". When asked who he will vote in the upcoming Italian General Elections, Luca said: "You could still make a distinction between the political parties in the 1960's. They're all the same. The Five Stars Movement is the new thing. One could vote them to give them a chance. But I won't".

Taranto, a formerly lovely town on the Ionian Sea has for the last several decades been dominated by the ILVA steel mill, the largest steel plant in Europe. It was built by the government in the 1960s as a means of delivering jobs to the economically depressed south, but has been implicated for a cancer as dioxin and mercury have seeped into local groundwater, tainting the food supply, while poisoning the bay and its once-lucrative mussels.

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©2018 Gianni Cipriano
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20180221_NYT_Puglia
TARANTO, ITALY - 22 FEBRUARY 2018: Luca Greco, an unemployed 30-years old living with his parents in Tamburi, the working-class district adjacent the ILVA steel mill, poses for a portrait at the Mini Bar in Taranto, Italy, on February 22nd 2018.<br /> <br /> Luca Greco has worked occasionally in call centers for a minimum salary, but hasn't had a job since 2013. His 65 years-old father is unemployed since 2003 and his mother works as a care-giver. He lives with his parents and 13 years-old brother. "I absolutely don't see a future in Taranto or in Italy. If I leave Tamburi, I will leave the country. I see a dark, tragic future". When asked who he will vote in the upcoming Italian General Elections, Luca said: "You could still make a distinction between the political parties in the 1960's. They're all the same. The Five Stars Movement is the new thing. One could vote them to give them a chance. But I won't".<br /> <br /> Taranto, a formerly lovely town on the Ionian Sea has for the last several decades been dominated by the ILVA steel mill, the largest steel plant in Europe. It was built by the government in the 1960s as a means of delivering jobs to the economically depressed south, but has been implicated for a cancer as dioxin and mercury have seeped into local groundwater, tainting the food supply, while poisoning the bay and its once-lucrative mussels.