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In the changed geo-political scenario, the Italian-Slovenian border assumes a new, earlier unknown function: from “barrier” to “filter”, now finally seems to be able to become also an “everyday-life space”. At the same time, however, the unidirectional flows presents several problematic aspects deriving from the suburban impact (pollution and landscape decay, gentrification effects, social and ethno-linguistic changes in the composition of the receiving society etc.), which have generated some concern in the Slovenian public opinion. Cross-border residential mobility is therefore a controversial phenomenon, as it reveals a series of contradictions, which are implicit in the concept of European integration itself. On the one hand, it represents an interesting laboratory for “bottom-up” cross-border integration, as it contributes to transform the border-barrier in a transnational space, where different people, cultures and ways of life meet and live together. On the other hand, the sudden and unexpected encounter between diversities, which were separated in the past by a border, perceived as a strong element of division and distinction, can lead to a fast alteration of the already existing balances, to the point that tensions or conflicts, that were supposed to be over, may arise again.
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