Rende: Guide

Rende is a town in Calabria, southern Italy. Its fraction named Arcavacata is the headquarter town of Università della Calabria (university of Calabria).

The city has a population of about 35000 citizens, although the city could reach even more than 60000, if even all the university students renting in Rende are counted.

Today, the city is divided in two parts: the old part, that is above a high hill and is where the city hall is too, and the new part, which is known as the continuing city of Cosenza and is the center of the city's economy.

Attractions

In Rende there are several attractions, such as the biggest mall in southern Italy "Metropolis", and the Robinson Park, the most known recreational park in the whole urban area of Cosenza.

Economy

The economy of Rende is mostly based on the University of Calabria. Even though a great percentage of Rende's citizens work there, in the past few years, there has been a great amount of investments involving renting.
Today, it has a likely strong economy, in comparison to all other southern Italy cities, and that's why today the city, in particular Quattromiglia, is in full expansion.
However, industry hasn't been very successful. Though Rende has an adequate industrial area, almost all the main industries have closed down (such as Legno Chimica), despite the efforts of local administrations.

Issues of Rende

Rende, like many other suburban cities, suffers huge problems involving crime. On May 31 of 2004, the former mayor of Rende, Sandro Principe, was shot (although not fatally) during the grand opening of the new Church of Sant Carlo Borromeo.
However, Rende doesn't suffer crime as much as other calabrian cities it's size and the population is fairly wealthy.

Traffic is another serious problem regarding Rende. As the city eventually grew in the past decades, this problem became worse and worse.
The SS107 (the road which connectes Cosenza and Rende to the university) and Viale Marconi are the most congested roads in the city. During morning rush hour, it is likely to see a five mile long lineup of vehicles heading to the campus on the SS107. The traffic instead of viale Marconi tends to create serious gridlock in the busy centre of Quattromiglia.
Politics claim that the best method to resolve these problems is creating a light-rail transit system that will eventually connect Cosenza, Rende and the University.

Household waste has been for several years another growing problem in the city (Cosenza included). Today, most household waste is being transferred to the landfill site in Crotone making it difficult to manage it's high costs. Only a little part of the city's waste is re-cycled at Rende's recycling centre.

Regardless of these problems, Rende is officially considered as one of the best places to live in Calabria and southern Italy.

Politics

Since the municipal elections of May 2006, the former mayor of Rende is Umberto Bernaudo. He won for a little more than fifty percent as the rapresentative of the Unione.
His plans are mainly interested, together with the mayor of Cosenza Salvatore Perugini, in creating a single and continuos urban area; meaning it's even possible that in a matter of years, the city of Rende may integrate with Cosenza.

Sports and media

The city of Rende is full of sport facilities, such as soccer(football) fields, tennis courts and even a swimming pool.
Rende is quite known for it's soccer team Rende FC, which competes in the official semi-professional tournament (C2).

Rende is even the home to many newspapers (Gazzetta del Sud, La Provincia Cosentina), and broadcasting companies (TEN TeleEuropaNetwork and MetroSat) that serve even the rest of the province.

This "Travel Guide" section is drawn from the Wikipedia article "Rende". We hope you will edit and improve it. It is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.