Quality of life, updated dashboard for attractive but not elitist cities

In twenty years, the metropolitan city of Rome has seen its population grow by 20 per cent in the suburbs, while inside the capital the increase has stopped at 7 per cent. Bologna attracted 22 thousand new residents in the centre (+6%), over 63 thousand in the urban belt (+11.1%). The trend in Milan is similar, but more balanced: in the city the increase was 8.5 per cent, in the hinterland 9.1 per cent. The appeal comes from a mix of ingredients: work, education, entrepreneurship, cultural offer. More opportunities thus translate into a higher GDP per capita.

The fact is that demographic attractiveness does not always go hand in hand with Quality of Life, in all its facets. Urbanisation processes generate conflicts that must be governed with an eye on welfare levels. This is the aim of the Sole 24 Ore survey, now in its 36th edition, offering a dashboard of 90 statistics useful as a platform - through the storytelling of the provincial ranking - to unite fragilities and best practices in political planning on the territory.

The report 'Cities for all ages', published in April by the OECD, speaks of 'exclusionary cities', i.e. not very socially and generationally inclusive, as also underlined by the Quality of Life of Children, Young People and the Elderly indices of the Sole 24 Ore presented at the Trento Festival of Economics last May. The share of the elderly (65 years and older) living in urban settings in the 35 OECD countries rose from 20.9 per cent in 2020 to 27.9 per cent today. House prices increased by 77% from 1996 to 2022, while GDP increased by 29% over the same period. The result is social imbalance and overpopulation. Suffice it to think that, according to the Piano Casa Milano 2023-2025, the city needs 80,000 new homes by 2030: a housing requirement that requires investments of 8 billion euro for social housing alone.

The crowdedness of the metropolitan areas, moreover, which during the day treble the insistent population with thousands of city users, tourists and commuters, inevitably translates into greater conflict: seven of the 14 metropolitan cities occupy the top ten of the territories with the most crimes reported to the judicial authorities per 100,000 inhabitants, as identified by the last edition of the Sole 24 Ore Crime Index, published at the beginning of November. In fact, the weight of high-density areas on the total volume of offences is growing: 47.9% of crimes in 2024 were detected in the 14 metropolitan cities, an incidence that has risen sharply in recent years compared to an average of 44% - practically stable - between 2009 and 2019.

Governance must then be intensified on environment and services. The latest 'Mal'aria' report by Legambiente certified that, in 2024, 25 Italian cities exceeded the legal limits for PM10 (35 days a year with a daily average of more than 50 micrograms/cubic metre). A recent WWF study also found that Italy was the third European country for economic damage and loss of life caused by extreme weather and climate events between 1980 and 2022. It continues to stand out in Europe with the record - negative - number of cars registered per 100 inhabitants, even though The Economist crowns Italian cities among the most pedestrian-friendly urban areas (Milan first, Turin third, Genoa ninth in the research 'A universal framework for inclusive 15-minute cities').