From boomtown to bribesville: the images of the city, Milan, 1980^97 JOHN M. FOOT* Centre for Italian Studies, UCL, London abstract: This article examines the changing images of the city of Milan over a period of two decades spanning the 1980s and 1990s. The article considers theoretical debates concerning city images. Milan is then analysed through the various spatial forms which encompass this modern city ± political space, populated space, geographic space, urban space and economic space. The next section assesses the changing images of the city through shifting historical phases and crises. Finally the article draws together the fundamental economic and social changes which have marked the deindustrialization and reinvention of Milan. This article will look to analyse the momentous changes in Milan during the 1980s and 1990s, above all through the mapping of the changing images of the city within a period marked by a succession of crises. Milan was the `capital of the miracle' during the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s as Italy transformed itself rapidly from a rural to an industrial society. The 1980s saw Milan again at the centre of Italy's so- called `second miracle', based upon the transformation away from heavy industry and towards a whole series of post-industrial activities. This period was marked by a speci®c kind of political domination and cultural change in the city, with Bettino Craxi's Socialist Party at the helm from 1976 to 1993. Massive and deep-rooted systems of political and economic corruption were unmasked by the dramatic `clean hands' investigations in the city, which began with the arrest of a mid-level Socialist of®cial in February 1992, and led to the disappearance of the Socialists from the political scene that they had controlled for so long. In 1993, the regional Northern Leagues won a crushing victory in the mayoral elections, but this relatively new grouping was unable or unwilling to attempt a revolution from above in the city, in part because the channels of mediation which had been constructed by the previous administrations had been broken, and in part because of blocks on * I would like to acknowledge the support of the British Academy through its City and Identity collaborative research project, based at UCL, the UCL Graduate School for help with travel costs and John Dickie, Bob Lumley, Antonio De Lillo, Paolo Natale, Giulio Sapelli and Mario Bof® in Milan for their constructive comments and assistance. Urban History, 26, 3 (1999) # 1999 Cambridge University Press Printed in the United Kingdom