It was a fair question from my Australian family, who I had dragged to Gibellina Nuova, a small town in the centre of Sicily. Slow initial construction and a subsequent lack of jobs meant that its vast plazas, enormous civic buildings and wide streets never filled up. Despite the wide, carbon-copy, car-friendly avenues complete with a mix of parking spaces and pedestrian boulevards, the residential side features villas with varied façades. The result is an architectural mix that is significantly different from most towns on the island. While it might not be a town that works in a conventional sense, what I see is a celebration of the sheer variety of human taste.