Industrialized Southern Italy?

Absolutely false. Check this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emigrazione_italiano_per_regione_1876-1915.svg

I cannot see any significant impact on emigration figures: between 1848 and 1915 there was a very large migration from Europe to the Americas, and this is not going to change.
To complement this, I live in Southern America, where the stereotypical Italian is tall, blond, fair-skinned with blue eyes, eats polenta, and drinks grappa. There are many small towns in Southern Brazil where people still speak "taliàn", which is not even Italian but a Venetian dialect. If you look at the figures here
you might see that the State of São Paulo alone has 13 million Italian descendants (with an overall population of 40 millions) as opposed to the roughly 17 millions Italo-Americans in the whole US. Ercole Sori, in his "L'emigrazione italiana dall'Unità alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale" argues that on the contrary, it was the demographic boom due to overall improved conditions in Southern Italy after Unification (not immediate effects, but after 20 years, mind you) that led to the Southern Italian diaspora.
 
What level of industrialization can Naples plausibly reach by 1900? And would Naples/Sicily be able to maintain different industries? Or would they be "unified" industrially?
Sorry my knowledge of Neapolitan/Sicilian geography is limited
 
Would Naples and Sicily have a better shot of industrializing as part of a Greek state rather than an Italian one? The region has enough historical, linguistic and cultural ties that Greece could see it as desirable, and any parts of southern Italy that are a part of Greece immediately gain the same advantages over Hellas that the North has over them; southern Italy, while mountainous, is nothing compared to Greece, has a higher population base, and is already more industrialized. In addition, the maritime-focused Greek economy would mesh well with the existing industries of the area.

The only problem would be geopolitical; any Greece resembling ours in its early years would be completely incapable of incorporating any territory in Italy, and no Great Power would have an interest in allowing Greece to do so (in the process gaining control over the mouth of the Adriatic) even if it could, with Austria in particular strongly opposed.
 
Would Naples and Sicily have a better shot of industrializing as part of a Greek state rather than an Italian one? The region has enough historical, linguistic and cultural ties that Greece could see it as desirable, and any parts of southern Italy that are a part of Greece immediately gain the same advantages over Hellas that the North has over them; southern Italy, while mountainous, is nothing compared to Greece, has a higher population base, and is already more industrialized. In addition, the maritime-focused Greek economy would mesh well with the existing industries of the area.

The only problem would be geopolitical; any Greece resembling ours in its early years would be completely incapable of incorporating any territory in Italy, and no Great Power would have an interest in allowing Greece to do so (in the process gaining control over the mouth of the Adriatic) even if it could, with Austria in particular strongly opposed.
Perhaps an ERE with Dalmatia as well.
 
What level of industrialization can Naples plausibly reach by 1900? And would Naples/Sicily be able to maintain different industries? Or would they be "unified" industrially?
Sorry my knowledge of Neapolitan/Sicilian geography is limited
I found this study that seems like a good start to try and figure out this. I know, it's in Italian, but I may try and translate it (o make an extended resume) if I have some time. Spoiler: the disparity North/South was worse than I imagined in 1861 in each and every aspect. Most studies points out that the difference between North and South decreased in the decade 1861/1871, not the contrary.
However, here are my two cents: say that Garibaldi does never make it to Sicily. The Northern/Central part of Italy (minus Veneto and Lazio) gets still united. Sicily breaks free at some point (unless Francis II is smart enough to revert his father's semi-colonial policies and/or recreates the Kingdom of Sicily. Not gonna happen) and might become an independent Republic, even a Kingdom, or join *Upper Italy (depends a lot on the circumstances). The Kingdom of Naples then needs to modernize and opens a bit to foreign capital, which will be mostly French. Part of the deal will probably to abandon or relaxo Ferdinand's protectionist policies, which may actually be mostly detrimental to the South (also given the reduced internal market). Frankly, my guess is that ITTL bar miracles by 1900 the kingdom of Naples lags behind the Italian SOuth, OTL counterpart by 1900.
 
For industrialisation, you also need certain resources and knowing what your economic strong suits are.

For example, would it make any sort of sense to focus on heavy industries in southern Italy ? Resource-intensive industries might not be the answer, especially if coal, iron ore, other metals, etc., are hard to acquire in the region itself. If you need to import iron ore and coal on a regular basis, that demands a lot of big infrastructure (factories, railways, freight ports, coalyards, ore storage) and makes it unlikely for steel mills to be located more inland, beyond the seaports. Or, on the off-chance, outside of the better rail-connected cities.

Would light industries make more sense, combined with commerce, smaller enterprises and investment into areas where local resources could be used and reused reasonably ? Developed food-processing industries, industries focused on pottery wares, in later eras maybe chemical and pharmaceutical industries... Precision industries that can utilise off-the-shelf metal (or later plastic/polymeric) products. You could maybe even start a timber industry. Have the southern governments start pursuing a policy of reforestation in the last two hundred years, wherever possible and effective. Set aside some forests for true rewilding (maybe a third) and the rest (maybe two thirds) for fairly sustainable logging practices (i.e. not exactly tree plantations, but economically-focused forests usable for the timber industry). Construction industries are another possiiblity, though with a potential for issues or corruption. Overfishing and overgrazing could become concerns in a food-production-and-processing focused industry, so this also needs to be taken into mind, and soil issues due to weak or bad land management could also cause losses in agriculture, especially one geared towards the food-processing industry.

As others have noted, investing into education and human capital is also a real boon for expanding industrialisation, as you're more likely to have an educated populace that can either provide expertise for industries (in theoretical knowledge and manual labour skill) or start their own small and medium enterprise that becomes part of the wider economic modernization (since the 19th century, or even sooner). We often think the early industrial revolutions were only about illiterate and poor labourers toiling away like slaves, but the growing effectiveness of modern industry went hand in hand with improving education standards, people empowered to do business or earn a reasonable wage. And later on, health and safety issues being taken far more seriously (this becoming more prominent in the last one hundred years, 19th century standards in these areas being more lax, though not universally everywhere).

Improving infrastructure to start a proper tourism industry a bit earlier would be a pretty big asset, I feel. Might make the place tourist trap-y far sooner or far moreso than in OTL, but it might bring in some bucks, hopefully without too much cynical disruption to local historical and cultural heritage. Improve the road, rail and ship connections and you might see tourists visiting the wider region on a more common and more organised basis.

Another service sector option even in the 19th century is going the Swiss route and providing international banking services. Obviously, this area has a huge potential for corruption issues, and financial services aren't exactly industrialization, but they could start to accumulate some degree of wealth from hard-paying clients.

Even with an industrialised southern Italy, and with the service sector (tourism, hypothetical banking) added in, I still have to wonder how this would affect or change the long-standing tradition of organized crime in southern Italy. In an industrialized version of the wider region, we might not get rid of gangs and mobsters, but they might develop into something different, maybe more akin to organized crime in other European countries that underwent industrialization.
 
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Look at the regions that industrialised early and heavily
  • South Wales
  • The Pennines
  • West Midlands
  • Scottish Central Belt
  • Belgium
  • Northeast France
  • Rhineland

What do they all have in common? Coal.

I don't think Southern Italy has coal, which means they need to wait until the Second Industrial Revolution at the very least. They also don't have the vast populations of the USA, Russia, China or Japan so I doubt they'd be able to catch up either.
 
To complement this, I live in Southern America, where the stereotypical Italian is tall, blond, fair-skinned with blue eyes, eats polenta, and drinks grappa. There are many small towns in Southern Brazil where people still speak "taliàn", which is not even Italian but a Venetian dialect. If you look at the figures here
Like my great-grampa's uncles from Veneto in 1890s who went to Santa Catarina do Sur - tall, blondish and polenta-eaters ;)
 
For industrialisation, you also need certain resources and knowing what your economic strong suits are.

For example, would it make any sort of sense to focus on heavy industries in southern Italy ? Resource-intensive industries might not be the answer, especially if coal, iron ore, other metals, etc., are hard to acquire in the region itself. If you need to import iron ore and coal on a regular basis, that demands a lot of big infrastructure (factories, railways, freight ports, coalyards, ore storage) and makes it unlikely for steel mills to be located more inland, beyond the seaports. Or, on the off-chance, outside of the better rail-connected cities.

Would light industries make more sense, combined with commerce, smaller enterprises and investment into areas where local resources could be used and reused reasonably ? Developed food-processing industries, industries focused on pottery wares, in later eras maybe chemical and pharmaceutical industries... Precision industries that can utilise off-the-shelf metal (or later plastic/polymeric) products. You could maybe even start a timber industry. Have the southern governments start pursuing a policy of reforestation in the last two hundred years, wherever possible and effective. Set aside some forests for true rewilding (maybe a third) and the rest (maybe two thirds) for fairly sustainable logging practices (i.e. not exactly tree plantations, but economically-focused forests usable for the timber industry). Construction industries are another possiiblity, though with a potential for issues or corruption. Overfishing and overgrazing could become concerns in a food-production-and-processing focused industry, so this also needs to be taken into mind, and soil issues due to weak or bad land management could also cause losses in agriculture, especially one geared towards the food-processing industry.

As others have noted, investing into education and human capital is also a real boon for expanding industrialisation, as you're more likely to have an educated populace that can either provide expertise for industries (in theoretical knowledge and manual labour skill) or start their own small and medium enterprise that becomes part of the wider economic modernization (since the 19th century, or even sooner). We often think the early industrial revolutions were only about illiterate and poor labourers toiling away like slaves, but the growing effectiveness of modern industry went hand in hand with improving education standards, people empowered to do business or earn a reasonable wage. And later on, health and safety issues being taken far more seriously (this becoming more prominent in the last one hundred years, 19th century standards in these areas being more lax, though not universally everywhere).

Improving infrastructure to start a proper tourism industry a bit earlier would be a pretty big asset, I feel. Might make the place tourist trap-y far sooner or far moreso than in OTL, but it might bring in some bucks, hopefully without too much cynical disruption to local historical and cultural heritage. Improve the road, rail and ship connections and you might see tourists visiting the wider region on a more common and more organised basis.

Another service sector option even in the 19th century is going the Swiss route and providing international banking services. Obviously, this area has a huge potential for corruption issues, and financial services aren't exactly industrialization, but they could start to accumulate some degree of wealth from hard-paying clients.

Even with an industrialised southern Italy, and with the service sector (tourism, hypothetical banking) added in, I still have to wonder how this would affect or change the long-standing tradition of organized crime in southern Italy. In an industrialized version of the wider region, we might not get rid of gangs and mobsters, but they might develop into something different, maybe more akin to organized crime in other European countries that underwent industrialization.
The banking and "playing to your strengths" (timber, construction) ideas sound interesting. And the chemical/pharmaceutical industries wouldn't be a far reach IMO (after all, wasn't there a Sulfur War or something in Sicily in the 19th century?), maybe even as a result of the dyeing trade. Shortage of a "natural" dye means that some person comes up with an artificial replacement messing around with his chemistry set. Few years later, Naples/Sicily is world's leading producer of said dye.
 
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