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inability to activate, redistribute, and make accessible the existing resource.This surplus is often trapped in an outdated housing model: housing designed for stable, large families, while society is now composed of singles, lonely elderly people, and digital nomads.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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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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