Cities must face up to changing role - EIRE conference hears

Cities around the world must come to terms with the need for social, cultural and economic transformation, Bill Kistler, President of Urban Land Institute Europe, told the opening conference of the Expo Italia Real Estate (EIRE) fair in Milan on Tuesday.

Kistler said the role of cities has changed in contemporary society and that they are losing their importance as industrial hubs. At the same time, social issues are becoming increasingly important, as new spaces for housing, leisure and parks are urgently needed. Urban centres need to re-develop their rundown industrial areas and 'dramatically' transform them for social purposes, Kistler said. 'We haven’t seen this coming and we were unprepared for this massive process of de-industrialisation of cities.’ The US city of Detroit is as a case in point, he added. Detroit started losing its population in the 1960s when the automobile industry moved to Mexico and Asia. Today Detroit is an abandoned city, which has lost half of its population in the last four decades.

Regeneration of cities needs the coming-together of private and public parties, said Kistler, as the investment required for this kind of masterplan is - in most cases - prohibitive. Venice's mayor Massimo Cacciari said the costs could reach as much as EUR 1,000 per m². But the economic impact on the regional and national economy is also impressive.

According to research presented by Lanfranco Senn of the University of Bocconi, every euro invested in urban regeneration generates an average of EUR 2.9 in economic activity. Senn analysed several regeneration projects across nine major Italian cities covering a combined area of 25.5 million m². These projects, worth a total of EUR 24 bn, generated economic activities valued at EUR 62 bn, about 4.4% of Italy’s GDP in 2005, Senn said.