A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI, #207 - Mending Italy: From the Construction Surplus to Smart Housing Policy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A vital, yet often overlooked, aspect of a national program is housing, 
the so-called Italian "housing paradox" too many homes and too many 
homeless families which is not an insoluble contradiction, but rather a 
symptom of a systemic failure of allocation. ---- The numbers are 
unequivocal: as of December 31, 2024, the residential stock exceeded 
35.6 million units (Cadastral Statistics), while the population, 
according to ISTAT, fell below 59 million. Even excluding second homes, 
unused properties, and vacant dwellings, the ratio remains eloquent: one 
home for every 2.29 individuals.
We are not faced with a scarce or emergency housing stock. The average 
home exceeds 5.5 rooms and 118 square meters. The problem, therefore, is 
not a lack of housing, but the chronic inability to activate, 
redistribute, and make accessible the existing resource.
This surplus is often trapped in an outdated housing model: housing 
designed for stable, large families, while society is now composed of 
singles, lonely elderly people, and digital nomads. In the face of 
increasingly flexible demand, supply remains rigid.
The divide is widening at the regional level. The North concentrates 
demand and profitability, the South accumulates unused stock, the Center 
is polarized around a hypertrophic Rome, while the Islands record a 
growing share of dormant properties. Approximately 70% of the population 
lives in urban areas, with peaks of unsustainable density in the major 
centers Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin where the stock, though present, is 
rigid, financialized, and increasingly less accessible.
At the root of these distortions is a now exhausted paradigm: the one 
that identified urban sprawl as a measure of progress. Building more has 
long been synonymous with development. Today, in a country losing 
population and accumulating empty homes, this model produces the 
opposite effect.
Land consumption continues to grow approximately 2.7 m² per second 
(ISPRA) despite the evident construction surplus. But the main obstacle 
is not technical: it's institutional.
A form of territorial competition has been triggered, pushing 
municipalities, often constrained by fragile budgets, to use land as 
financial leverage. Urbanization charges become a tool to support 
current expenditures, transforming planning into a response to the 
accounting emergency. The result is a proliferation of fragmented 
settlements, where the logic of "raising money" prevails over 
territorial coherence.
This mechanism highlights the structural limitations of urban planning 
tools based on the municipal scale, which are no longer adequate to 
govern phenomena that operate on a broad basis: mobility, logistics, 
real estate markets.
Containing land consumption cannot therefore be based solely on 
constraints, but requires a leap in scale: supra-local planning capable 
of coordinating decisions, rebalancing functions, and guiding the use of 
existing assets.
Even the strategies of so-called "showcase" cities like Milan, Florence, 
or Bologna have often reinterpreted this model without transcending it. 
Urban branding has transformed diversity into a competitive lever, but 
at the cost of a growing homogenization of spaces and gentrification 
processes that displace residents and neighborhood businesses.
Added to this is the pressure of touristification: in cities like Venice 
or Florence, significant portions of historic centers are now deprived 
of permanent residence. The housing stock thus ceases to be a social 
infrastructure and becomes a financial asset, emptying urban centers of 
functions and community.
At the same time, housing becomes increasingly less accessible and 
increasingly expensive. Not only for young people, for whom 
homeownership is now distant, but also for those who already own. 
According to the CENSIS-Federproprietà Report, for a growing share of 
families, housing costs represent a factor of economic vulnerability: 
for many, their home has gone from being a guarantee to a risk.
The picture is completed by an Italy that is emptying even as it 
expands. Large urban centers are becoming saturated, while inland areas 
are depopulating and entire villages are being abandoned. This process 
is not only social, but also territorial: according to ISPRA, 93.9% of 
Italian municipalities are exposed to hydrogeological risks. In such a 
fragile context, continuing to consume land and neglecting existing ones 
amplifies the country's overall vulnerability.
This scenario highlights a clear gap between needs and mismatched 
resources. On the one hand, the so-called "new Italians" are finding it 
increasingly difficult to access housing, especially in large urban 
centers; on the other, in inland areas and small municipalities, a large 
housing stock remains unused. This lack of connectivity represents

One of the system's most obvious inefficiencies: empty homes and unmet 
demand continue to coexist without meeting.
Experimental social and housing regeneration projects, such as the one 
launched in Riace, Calabria, demonstrate that a different approach is 
possible: the reuse of abandoned homes can become a lever for inclusion 
and territorial regeneration. Integrating housing and migration policies 
is therefore not an emergency response, but a structural choice: 
connecting empty spaces and presences means reactivating territories and 
rebuilding communities.
Overcoming the Italian housing paradox requires a paradigm shift that 
concerns not only urban planning, but the entire model of territorial 
governance.
The challenge is no longer to build new homes, but to make the existing 
housing stock visible, accessible, and usable.
This involves a shift from an expansive to a regenerative approach, in 
which the building stock becomes a social infrastructure to be managed 
dynamically.
In this context, the institutional dimension is crucial: municipal 
fragmentation is no longer adequate to govern phenomena that operate on 
a large scale. A supralocal direction is needed, capable of coordinating 
housing, infrastructure, and fiscal policies, overcoming competition 
between territories and directing transformations toward the collective 
interest.
Alongside governance reform, a new enabling lever is emerging: 
knowledge. Digital technologies and artificial intelligence can enable 
what until now has only been intuitive: mapping unused housing stock in 
real time, matching housing supply and demand, forecasting future needs, 
and guiding urban regeneration policies in a selective and targeted manner.
Housing thus becomes not just a good to be regulated, but an information 
system to be understood and governed.
From this perspective, a national housing policy must integrate three 
fundamental dimensions: the regeneration of the existing stock, 
cooperation between institutional levels, and the intelligent use of 
data and technologies to support public decisions.
Ultimately, mending Italy means building a system in which the building 
stock is no longer a static resource, but an active network serving people.

Sabrina Barresi

https://www.ucadi.org/2026/04/19/ricucire-litalia-dal-surplus-edilizio-alla-politica-dellabitare-intelligente/
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