Building recovery, property values and demographic decline after the 2009 abruzzo earthquake

Abstract

The dilapidation of building stock that has come to characterise the hillside and mountainous settlements of the region of Abruzzo in recent decades is a sign of forms of economic decline and negative demographic trends. In this situation, it is difficult to imagine occasions for a turn in events triggered by endogenous forces; instead, there is a sense of the need for public intervention and targeted economic-social policies. Indeed, in settlements lacking important resources for tourism and/or infrastructures for winter sports, it is very difficult to imagine their recovery through interventions entrusted solely to the market: often negligible property values suggest the inconvenience of any building requalification project in relation to asset or income-based objectives of valorisation. The reconstruction process put into place after the 2009 earthquake could have been interpreted and implemented within a vaster programme of interventions based on clear and defined strategic capable of guaranteeing prospects for the long-term relaunching and development of damaged areas. The initial idea behind the Reconstruction Plans appeared to confirm a similar approach. In reality, reconstruction is proceeding as a simple programme of building recovery. The paper develops this thesis by attempting to demonstrate how almost a decade after the 2009 earthquake, the funding provided to date has not produced particularly relevant effects on local economics and demographics.