BOLZANO. In Bolzano it continues to advance in what is technically defined as the “incremental logic” of the high cost of housing. Translation: living here costs more and more.
It is a climb without ever a day of respite that of the capital on the terrain most suited to it, that of big city rents.
There are only Milan and Rome, in the latest Uil report on housing emergencies, in front of us: not a nice podium, looking at it from the perspective of an affluent but now exponentially decreasing middle class worker. Imagine for the other income groups behind him.
The ranking
To go to the figures: in Milan the rent accounts for 64% of the entire family budget, in Rome for 54% while in Bolzano – in third place in the national ranking – it accounts for 43,3%. Well behind, in fourth place, is a large university city like Bologna, where rent is just over 34% of income. This positioning of Bolzano will then be inserted into the framework of the national averages in this regard to capture the obvious anomaly. Which include most of the medium-sized centres, comparable in size, quality of life and extension to Bolzano.
Well in Italy the average rent accounts for only 17.7% of the family budget. Given that the average allowance that is paid for living in a house is 531 euros per month, equal to 6,372 euros per year. Putting ourselves on the same level as the absolute figures, in Milan, always at the top of the ranking, an average monthly rent settles at 1,920 euros, in Rome it reaches 1,620 euros, while in Bolzano it is well above 1300 euros per month.
The Bolzano emergency
Be careful, explains at this point Toni Serafini, former Uil secretary and expert on the housing market, “because those figures concern apartments of 100 square metres”. Which, however, clearly offer an extremely plausible comparison even with respect to all the other typologies. And they explain, for example, how it is now impossible in Bolzano to find a studio apartment for less than 600 euros a month or a two-room apartment for less than 700/800 euros.
And how, equally, the request for 900 euros per month for a mini in a student residence is viewed naturally and the limit placed by the Municipality on private projects for accommodation reserved for university students at 600 euros for a single room is observed with pleased attention. A figure of 1300 euros for the rent of an apartment capable of hosting two adults and a child, maximum two, makes us observe the average salaries of workers, workers and employees, especially young people, from a finally realistic perspective. And he explains, in more than a thousand questions in the Council, how it is now impossible with an average salary not only to buy a house, but also to rent it. “The issue of housing must return central to the political agenda”, says the national Uil. Adding the need to set up a multi-year residential construction plan. “That the Province decides to go back to building houses with public money,” councilor Juri Andriollo asked a few weeks ago. Well, if Uil offers all this in a country that, on average, pays less than half the prices for a house in Bolzano, we understand what the housing emergency is now in our capital.