Market-Oriented Models of Social Housing as Tools for Social Mix: The Case of Bergamo

Abstract

The proliferation of market-oriented models of social housing has characterised the rearrangement of housing policy in Italy. These new housing models aimed to differentiate a supply of public housing often presented as limited and ineffective by including specific groups from the middle class who struggle to access the rental market. The new models are thus associated with the notion of ‘social mix’, and the need to remedy the ambiguous effects of the traditional public housing system has been emphasised, especially in terms of the spatial concentration of low-income households. This analysis focuses on the rearrangement of housing policy in the context of Bergamo, Lombardy’s middle-sized city, by analysing the implementation of a new socially rented housing model, namely moderate rental, and evaluating its effectiveness as a tool of tenure diversification within mass housing neighbourhoods which show high concentrations of low-income population. Through focusing the investigation on this case study, the research aims to contribute to bridging the gap in the scientific literature regarding the importation of social-mix policies into the South European context.