Building university campuses outside the cities against “expensive rents”

The problem of renting for students is not a surprise given the locations in which universities are located, the limited real estate supply and the complicated urban connectivity. Italy has been waiting for more than half a century for the construction of university buildings in less congested areas

Italy is a country divided along many dimensions and this fact pollutes political life, often making it impossible to adopt reasonable changes. The fierce controversy over what has been called “expensive university rent” is a perfect example. In addition to the ancient North-South dualism, there are two other relevant ones: the social distance between graduates (one out of five) and the rest of the population, and the concentration of development dynamics in a few metropolitan areas located within a radius of about 100 km around the river Po. These metropolitan areas are also those with the greatest tourist flow and where construction and transport choices, both local and national, have restricted the growth of the real estate offer and complicated intra-urban connectivity. And finally, getting to the topic at hand: the majority of universities of higher quality than the national average are concentrated in exactly these same metropolitan areas.