Conservation planning and informal institutions: heterogeneous patterns in Italian cities Elisabetta Pietrostefani University College London Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment Email: e.pietrostefani@ucl.ac.uk
Abstract Conservation planning solves an economic coordination problem by internalizing positive externalities, i.e. preserving urban heritage. Non-compliance undermines conservation effects, but little is known about how much harm it actually does. This paper exploits a novel data set of property prices for 55 Italian cities. Despite the stringent planning regulations in this context, the conditions of the urban environment vary widely throughout the country, including within protected areas. The first step of the paper explores the variation in price premiums across 933 Landscape Areas (LAs) and 236 Historic Centres (HCs), using a boundary discontinuity design (BDD). The second step uses an instrumental strategy to substantiate estimates and confirm that, at least partially, rates of abusivismo (AB) – illegal building and construction – reduce heritage price premiums, suggesting the influence of informal institutions. Key words: spatial planning, conservation and preservation, public policies
1 | A story of heterogeneity Architectural beauty, whether historic or modern, can be considered a local public good and amenity. Urban heritage is the category of heritage that most directly concerns the environment of every person. Living within or in close proximity to urban heritage areas is thought to provide a number of welfare benefits. Similarly to other planning policies addressing local public goods, heritage preservation policies solve an economic coordination problem. Conservation planning corrects for market failures and internalizes positive externalities, by preserving spaces of particular heritage value or architectural beauty which might otherwise be subject to considerable urban change because of market pressures to exploit land in attractive places. Italy is famously known for the richness of its urban heritage, which has been argued to be a valuable public asset throughout the country by countless experts (Albrecht & Magrin 2015; Bonfantini 2012; Bandarin & Oers 2012). Article 9 of the Italian Constitution states the need to protect and enhance both the landscape and the historical and artistic heritage of the nation (Cosi 2008; Trentini 2016). Italy presents a longstanding conservation planning system, with well-developed policies and strict regulations. These regulations impose considerable limitations on how the urban environment can be modified within these areas, in order to preserve the sociocultural and historic values of urban fabrics. It has in fact been argued that conservation planning is one of the contributions to have been made by Italian urbanism (Balducci & Gaeta 2015).1 Non-compliance with planning policy undermines its effects. Little is known, however, as to how much harm non-compliance actually does. Italy presents a context where, despite stringent planning regulation, the conditions of the urban environment vary widely throughout the country, including within protected areas (ISTAT 2015). The presence of such heterogeneity in conservation areas has not, to this author’s knowledge, been empirically explored to date, and neither have hypotheses that this variation could stem from non-compliance embedded in informal institutions. Abusivismo (AB) – illegal or unauthorized building and construction – is often argued to be behind heterogeneity in urban environmental conditions (Zanfi 2013), potentially undermining planners’ efforts to preserve heritage externalities. This paper will explore the heterogeneity in urban heritage effects, delimited through conservation planning, and attempt
‘The Italian modern movement not only saw the historic city as unreplaceable part of the city to be preserved, but as a model of inspiration for the design of the modern city’ Giuseppa Fera in Ernesti et al. (2015). 1
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Evoluzione istituzionale, nuovi strumenti e modelli di governance territoriale. A cura di Cotella G., Ponzini D., Janin Rivolin U. Planum Publisher e Società Italiana degli Urbanisti, Roma-Milano 2021 | ISBN: 978-88-99237-29-5 | DOI: 10.53143/PLM.C.221
