One of my parents is from Ragusa and I've spent more than half of my life in Sicily. The answer can be summed up in "Culture, Corruption, Infrastructure, in this order".

I can see the last point improving over time. I give absolutely 0% chances to the first two points changing over time, bar some apocalypse-level destruction and rebuilding of society.

▲

pseudohadamard 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Friend of mine, from northern Italy (Piedmont), puts it down to "bloody meridionali", but it's possible he might be ever so slightly biased :-).

	▲	easyThrowaway 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Calling someone a "bloody...ahem meridionali" sounds a lot like those guys who would address a black guy as an "annoying N...nuisance, I mean". Tell him he can drop the politically correct facade and call us Terroni (or Terun, with an hard-R), no need to pretend otherwise.