San Siro

A name and a district famous around the world as the home of AC Milan & Internazionale however this neighbourhood also represents one of the most interesting and striking socio-demographic cross-sections of the entire city.

The road Via Harar divides this district into two very distinct zones, neither of which are particularly well known to students; to the north you have the very upper-middle-class San Siro, home to some of the cities most famous tenants including many of the AC & Inter players. Surrounded by greenery with all kinds of elegant villas & condominiums with the most modern infrastructure - it is no wonder the north of San Siro has become home for many of the most affluent.

If you look across Via Harar to the south (towards the centre) however, things change A LOT. Instead of the greenery and luxurious villas to the north, there are mostly public houses and buildings typical of the 1950s built in response to the housing crisis of the time. These types of buildings continue in a radial pattern along all the roads to the south. The green pastures of the north practically disappear and to find it again you have to go to Baggio. The only landmark structure in the area is the San Carlo Hospital.

San Siro constitutes an interesting phenomenon - an invisible wall. In some respects it can be defined as the Kreuzberg of Milan, like the Berlin district, it represents the major ethnic and social divisions of the city where immigrants and upper-middle-class citizens live in close proximity with very little interaction. The inhabitants of the two areas, in fact, attend very different places, there children attend different schools and there is practically no integration points across either side of the 'wall'.

It's no surprise then that international students know little about this area beyond the famous stadium; the international student community in the south district dominated by social housing is virtually non-existent and the north of San Siro is expensive, affluent and again somewhat disconnected from student life, with only a purple metro line, most trips into the centre require a changeover. On the other hand, for larger 'self-sufficient' groups looking to rent an entire villa in the greenest part of the city, we couldn't suggest a better area however single student arrivals may well want to look at other neighbourhoods with more student community and better connections to their university and the centre!