Abstract
This article presents self-building projects and policy in Italy and discusses their potential to respond to housing needs in contemporary cities. It first analyzes a specific regional policy designed to promote access to housing for social groups excluded from the housing market and at the same time to foster integration between Italian and immigrant families. Secondly, it looks at the development and implementation of two self-building projects, one within the framework of the regional policy and one outside it. Our aim is to provide an assessment of the related policy and the practices in terms of institutional and social innovation.
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Notes
According to calculations by Baldini and Poggio, 8.3 % of all Italian households live in dwellings allocated free of charge within family networks.
Overall, the rental sector accounts for 21.1 % of the residential stock.
Due to the strong role of the family in financing house acquisition, the use of mortgage credit is still limited: only 2/3 of dwelling purchases are financed by a mortgage (Banca d’Italia 2013).
Italy’s default rate was 1.4 % in 2008, still far below that of more troubled countries such as Greece (5.3 %) or Spain (2.4 %), but nonetheless considered to be exceptionally high for the country.
According to the most recent data, 5 million regular immigrants were present on the territory in 2011, equal to 8.2 % of the total population, plus an estimated 400–500,000 undocumented, more than half from other European countries, more than half women (Ambrosini 2013).
For a general overview on various countries see Duncan and Rowe (1993), Harris (1991, 1999), Wedgwood (1994), Barlow et al. (2001), Brown (2007, 2008), Bertoni and Cantini (2008); for national overviews see Benson—https://selfbuildproject.wordpress.com/author/michaelacbenson/ Last access 10 May 2015, Barlow (1992) on the UK; Maloutas (2003) on Greece; Mikhalev (2008), Ryzhova (2008) on Russia; Rowe (1989) on Canada; DTI/OSMS (1996) on Japan; Bangdome-Dery et al. (2014) on Ghana and Africa; Ward et al. (2014), Kowaltowsky (1988) and Kowaltowsky et al. (2005) on Latin America; Dingle (1999) on Australia.
The Michelucci Foundation promotes research in planning and social issues (see www.michelucci.it).
The representative at the Provincial level of the Ministry of the Interior.
Building societies take a specific form and function in Italy: they are traditionally non profit co-operatives working within the framework of a state supported housing program (“edilizia agevolata”), for the construction of owner-occupied housing for middle/low-income families on land made available for that purpose by municipalities. Participating families are entitled to low-interest loans. As they function as construction companies, they are not interested in self-building projects. The building society that became involved in the projects here presented is of an entirely different kind.
The analysis of this case is based on 8 semi-structured interviews that have been carried out with two self-builders and other relevant actors, since February 2013, including: one of the project leaders of the RESP program, a Public Officer of the Housing Department of the Paderno Dugnano Council that followed the project after Alisei went bankrupt, an Officer of the Regional Social Housing Building agency ALER, involved in the Paderno Dugnano project, the Director of Alisei Autocostruzioni srl, two architects who managed and supervised the self-builders’ team in Paderno; a non-systematic online press review of Corriere della Sera and Redattore Sociale on this issue of self-building; the collection of institutional documents as well as institutional letters written by the Co-operative Progetti Uniti to communicate with the Municipality of Paderno, Alisei Autocostruzioni and ALER; the visioning of various TV programs on Alisei and self-building on which recordings are available online. Additionally, informal discussions were undertaken with housing experts and scholars; Roberto Crose, an undergraduate architecture student of the Politecnico of Milan studying the case of Paderno Dugnano provided further insights and Martina Valsesia, a graduate of the University of Milano-Bicocca now working at Fondazione Housing Sociale in Milan that wrote on the case of Casalmaggiore too.
A short documentary on self-building in Paderno was made by one of the national TV networks and can be downloaded from this site: http://www.report.rai.it/dl/Report/puntata/ContentItem-30f12284-056c-440e-8db9-9beccc3601be.html.
Building tasks require teams of at least two people and safety regulations regarding the building site do not allow working on the site if only one person is present at all times.
Problems of financial and organizational mismanagement eventually caused Alisei to declare bankruptcy in 2010; according to an Alisei representative this was due to poor financial management; it is our opinion that the NGO was involved in too many projects for its organizational structure and financial capacity.
The analysis of this case is based on empirical material collected by Martina Valsesia for her undergraduate thesis on self-building in Casalmaggiore (Valsesia 2010).
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Acknowledgments
This research was partly self-funded and partly supported by a Nesta UK Research Grant in collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian University, TEPSIE, Oxford Saïd Business School, the Social Innovation Exchange, and The Rockefeller Foundation. An early version of this paper was presented at the International Conference “Social frontiers: the Next Edge of Social Innovation Research”, Glasgow Caledonian University, London, November 2013; we are very grateful for the comments received during the conference. The authors would like to thank our colleagues in the COST Action IS1102, “Social services, welfare state and places”; we are grateful for the support of the COST programme and would like to acknowledge the contribution of all experts participating in this specific Action. Last, but not least, we would also like to thank Martina Valsesia for providing the empirical material of her Casalmaggiore case study and for discussing with us our interpretation as well as Roberto Crose for the policy material he shared on Paderno Dugnano and self-building in the Lombardy Region.
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Semprebon, M., Vicari Haddock, S. Innovative housing practices involving immigrants: the case of self-building in Italy. J Hous and the Built Environ 31, 439–455 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-015-9464-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-015-9464-3