The family house and its territories in contemporary Italy: present conditions and future perspectives

Abstract

Family houses are the principal material of the dispersed settlements that have marked the Italian urban landscape since the 1970s. From the Po Plain to the Adriatic coast and Apennine valleys, and all the way down to the Mezzogiorno, these buildings have created a built environment in which distinct features interweave with more standard formats. Today, a large part of this housing stock is facing a crisis, unable to provide the qualities demanded by its inhabitants, whose changing needs it is unsuited to address. The old-style family houses are showing signs of under-use, while new building formats are being developed on former farmland. Given this critical scenario, we outline three reform strategies intended to redirect the urban fabric of the città diffusa towards social, environmental and economic sustainability. These strategies favour the adaptation of existing family houses, to channel the dynamics for change, which are already underway, towards these sustainability goals.

Keywords:

• family house
• città diffusa
• Italy
• sprawl
• crisis
• strategies of urban reform

Notes

1. These wide-ranging phenomena extend to large parts of Italy affected by forms of diffused urbanization. Between 2009 and 2013, the authors of this article observed them above all in the central area of the Veneto, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, in Brianza Milanese (Lombardy), in the industrial districts of Emilia Romagna and in some of the valleys of the Marches.

2. In the absence of official reports, the estimate referred to comes from a series of interviews with estate agents in the province of Mestre and the city of Treviso (central Veneto Region) carried out by Federico Zanfi in the three-year period 2009–2011.

3. The approach here proposed, seeking to interpret and channel the processes already underway, differs markedly from other recent approaches. The latter have recognized the non-sustainability of this form of urban development and predict transformations that are perhaps more thoroughgoing and substantial, but less organic to the reality of the social and settlement conditions; see for example Dunham-Jones and Williamson (2009), Tachieva (2010), and Bergdoll and Martin (2012).

4. These scenarios were the subject of a recent national housing provision – the Piano Casa – which sought to find a convergence of interests between the needs to extend living space, save energy costs and stimulate activity in the building sector. However, the success of this provision has been quite modest, due to factors outlined above (Lanzani and Zanfi 2010).