Mayors: hard to govern without resources

From the metropolis to the province. "We are the front office of the population," explains Masci. "Never before have we had to deal with social emergencies as in this period. In Pescara, there were 8,000 service interventions in 2019, there were 20,000 in 2025. The NRP confronts us with the challenge of managing the works carried out. We have made five new kindergartens, but we will have to manage them'. Without funds, is the implied refrain.

On priorities, besides resources, the mayors agree on the housing emergency, which has been forgotten for too long. Gualtieri emphasises how, in a housing market that is not working, targeted investment in housing is needed. "In the housing plan there are no additional resources for Erp, the houses with minimum rents for citizens with very low incomes. We are buying houses on the market to rent them out at low rents. We are paying for the wicked property disposal policies of the second republic'.

"The government's housing plan," says Sala, "is a start. But we have to realise that while there are 40 million homes in Italia, there is a shortage in the cities. We should start by directly financing citizens to buy the houses of the institutions, banks and insurance companies that want to get rid of them'.

Conte tells about the delivery of 60 cohousing flats in Treviso. He points out the risk that the EU funds for housing, transferred to the municipalities through the state, are in danger of not arriving and launches a very concrete proposal, as mayor. "Disused barracks and schools, many of them," he says, "should be immediately transferred to the municipalities that can regenerate them in a very short time and hand them over to the population". Mascia emphasises the construction of four new student halls of residence in Pescara and the need to renovate the existing 'dilapidated' public building stock. Ianeselli invokes an old, simple social-democratic plan: 'Make public housing and deliver it to those who need it. Having the courage to go high so as not to consume land, even in small cities'.

Concrete solutions, as mayors. All, except Gualtieri, at the end of their second term and all available, but only if called, for new political posts. Only Gualtieri renounces Satan and all temptations. "I will be mayor for eight years, I don't see anything else. The most complicated, but perhaps most beautiful job in politics. As Masci says, 'the one where you take off your party's shirt and put on the city's. All of us today, across the political spectrum, have talked about the same problems and suggested similar solutions, those of common sense and good governance'. After all, that would be politics.