The city to be demolished. A case study for the analysis of demolition and urban contraction costs in Italy [La città da demolire. Un caso studio per l’analisi dei costi di demolizione e contrazione urbana in Italia]

Contraction, downsizing, rescaling and subtraction are all words that characterise the urban planning debate with increasing frequency. Two components can be found at the basis of their circulation and declination.On the one hand, the recognition of the vast unused and disused real estate for which regeneration, reuse and renovation are not possible; on the other hand, the will and hope to rebalance the results of the hypertrophic twentieth-century urban development. The legitimacy of these instances is the wides pread belief that demolition and contraction are low-cost operations that can be financed by the owners of the property or through the usual equalisation and negotiation mechanisms. By using a case study, this paper will clear up amis understanding; it will explain how demolition and subtraction costs, which can be put on equal footing with renovations and, in some cases, new construction are sufficiently massive making their implementation within the public and public-private policies very difficult.