Towards a collaborative way of living

In the absence of a national policy, locally developed policies and projects have so far experimented different degrees of innovation, stemming from different roots. They all share problems linked to the implementation of new urban developments and the reuse of relevant portions of the existing stock, including both the underused public housing stock and the unsold private one. The paper discusses the main three issues arising from various local examples in Italy. The first issue investigates the new models of governance and the role of the social manager as key elements in social housing interventions. A second issue explores potentially successful fiscal tools for the implementation of social affordable housing, mainly integrated with the regeneration of the private existing stock. As a third issue, the economic sustainability of different projects is a challenge that needs an appreciable private / public partnership. Intersecting the three issues, the paper intends to investigate the housing policies and illustrate the planning and regulatory instruments adopted in recent years in major cities, so to expand mainly the supply of the rental affordable market. Besides, the paper intends to identify the role of public, private and not profit actors, paying attention to non-traditional stakeholders, like the Bank Foundations, which have dedicated ethical investments and real estate funds to supply affordable housing. Finally, some interesting case studies of collaborative housing recently produced by a Foundation in Milan, are presented as attempts to enhance the construction of a community welfare.