Smart city and geology

The geology is one of the major factors that affect how a city grows and cause, in terms of the balance between resource and risk, the success or decline. When the use of the resource becomes excessive and it does not take more account of geological character, natural processes become risks and often turn into real disasters. The history of ancient Rome is a great example of how the choice of the urban site and its expansion were strongly affected by the geological features of the territory. The respect for nature together with the large availability of resources were the prerequisite for the success of the city. Naples was not equally fortunate; it developed in a similar geological context and more or less at the same time, but, it never enjoyed the same natural resources than Rome and had a morphologically complex territory suffering from major geological hazards. This was probably the main reason of her destiny. While Rome became the capital of an empire that still today is unparalleled in history, Naples, while preserving an important role in the history of the Mediterranean and Italy, was soon subject to the power of Rome.