Economy
The economy of Como, until the end of the 1980s, was traditionally based on industry; in particular, the city was world famous for its silk manufacturers but in recent years cheap competition from China has significantly reduced profit margins and many small and mid-sized firms have gone out of business. As a consequence manufacturing is no longer the economic driver and the city has been absorbed into Milan's metropolitan area where it mainly provides workers to the service industry sector. A significant number of residents is employed in the nearby industrial areas of the Swiss towns of Lugano and Mendrisio, primarily in the industrial sector, health care services and in the hospitality industry; the 30 km (19 mi) commute is beneficial as wages in Switzerland are notably higher. For these reasons, tourism has become increasingly important for the local economy since the 1990s. The city and the lake have been chosen as the filming location for various recent popular feature films, and this, together with the increasing presence of celebrities who have bought lakeside properties, has heightened the city's international profile and given a further boost to international tourism.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)