Episode Details

Imagine you're the mayor of a small, rural town. Over the years the houses have become empty as people move to the city for employment. An earthquake 50 years ago caused terrible damage and forced more families to leave their homes.想象一下，你是一座偏远小镇的市长。多年来，随着人们为了工作迁往城市，镇上的房屋逐渐空置。而且在五十年前，一场地震造成了严重破坏，迫使更多家庭离开家园。

And you find yourself facing the possibility of living in a ghost town but in a most beautiful area. We look at the strategy that one local council used to reverse their decline. So where are we, Jackie? On the Italian island of Sicily in a small town called Sambuca.于是你发现自己正面临着一个可能——生活在一座风景优美却濒临“鬼城”的地方。我们来看一个地方政府是如何扭转这种衰退的。那么，我们现在在哪儿呢，杰基？在意大利西西里岛，一个名叫桑布卡（Sambuca）的小镇。

Sounds great. So what was Sambuca like in the past then? Very different, Richard. It was a bustling town of about 9,000 people.听起来不错。那么，桑布卡过去是什么样的呢？完全不一样，理查德。那时它是一个热闹的城镇，约有九千名居民。

It was, well, and still is, on the top of a hill. And it's in a nature reserve about an hour's drive from the capital. Right, OK.它坐落在一座山顶上，现在依然如此。小镇位于一个自然保护区内，距离首都大约一个小时车程。好的，明白了。

So what happened? Basically, Richard, farming practices changed. And following the industrialisation of the agricultural sector, farm workers simply left. So they didn't need so many farm workers.那么后来发生了什么？基本上，理查德，是农业方式发生了变化。随着农业产业化的发展，农场工人不再被需要，因此纷纷离开了。

They all left to the city to find jobs then. Yeah, I mean, there's just no human labour needed in the fields anymore. And that left the mayor and his deputy needing to decide what to do.他们都去了城市找工作。是的，因为农田里再也不需要人工劳作了。于是市长和副市长不得不面对一个问题——该怎么办。

Exactly, with only about 5,000 people now. So what they decided to do was to sell the homes that the council owned because they wanted people to buy the homes and do them up, live in them and then provide a community once more. Actually, they had an interesting marketing strategy.没错，如今镇上只剩约五千人。所以他们决定出售镇政府名下的房屋，希望吸引人们购买、修缮、居住，从而重建一个社区。事实上，他们采用了一种非常有趣的营销策略。

They wanted to sell the houses, but they also wanted to attract media attention. So they decided to advertise the homes for €1 each. €1.他们不仅想卖房子，还想吸引媒体关注。于是，他们决定以每套1欧元的价格对外宣传这些房屋。1欧元！

So you can imagine, right, huge