Progetto Vicinato Solidale. Esperienza di coabitazione intergenerazionale studentesca | Neighborhood Solidarity Program. an Experience of Student Intergenerational Co-housing

During the last few years we are witnessing a progressive increase in the phenomena of sharing different moments of life, particularly with regard to living and working, defined with some compound words preceded by the prefix “co”: co-working for shar- ing work spaces; co-housing for sharing living spaces and co-living for sharing ways of living. It is a point of great since the 1960s in northern Europe and more recently in the large European and American cities, which mainly involves young people but also new categories of users typical of contemporary society. The magnitude of the economic fallout and the financial implications show that we are not facing a pass- ing and perimeter fashion but a real change of paradigm for how to live and work in urban contexts. In this area, although still too limited, experiments are being undertaken in Italy to support and cooperate between individuals, including the experience of local communities working to create solutions that provide safe and cheap housing for out-of-home university young people on the one hand, and moral and physical support for elderly and disabled people, on the other, in this way, they can count on help, assistance, or even simple companionship of young people during the day. Objective of the paper is to frame this form of cohabitation and to illustrate more in depth the experience of the city of Piacenza, born from the collaboration between university (Polytechnic of Milan), municipality (Municipality of Piacenza) and manager of public residential assets (Acer Piacenza).