In the center, Place d'Italie offers the hustle and bustle of its shopping center and its movie theaters. Historically, it was an industrial area in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. While an old, undeveloped environment has been retained on the Butte-aux-Cailles side, unsanitary blocks were demolished and paved the way, on the other side of Avenue d'Italie, for a modern neighborhood. From the 1980s, successive waves of refugees from southeast Asia took over.