Gentrification and sport. football stadiums and changes in the urban rent

Abstract

In this paper we examine the changes in terms of urban rent and urban planning occurring after the introduction on the Italian law of 21 June 2017, n. 96 on Football stadiums property and management. Such law is actually paving the way to a set of new and still unexplored consequences on urban rents and urban renewal processes and real estate markets, as well as in terms of new patterns of urban behaviors. In detail, changes deal with the times strictly related to sport events, well scheduled in time (peak events), and those related to the ordinary life of the area (off peak events) as retail, transport and leisure/residential activities, often now coupled with the presence of such sport facilities. We briefly analyze some few Italian cases of football stadiums renewals, especially looking at those settled in cities hosting premier league clubs. We looked also at consequences they had in terms of urban rent, urban services. After, we started considering the possible implications that such investments can have on the cities that are likely to host such renewal processes in the near future, trying to highlight some possible changes in the “hedonic price” asset, and suggestions in terms of policy aimed at igniting a ‘good’ gentrification process.