Foreign citizens are a more and more significant part of the population of Italian cities and society (8% of the country’s total population), and they contribute to changes in the cultural, social, and economic structure of the country. Our aim was to assess the incidence of the immigrant population on urban house price polarization, as measured using an original indicator: the center-periphery housing price gradient. While there is ample literature on the relationship between average prices and immigrant populations, less research has been conducted on immigration and the housing price gradient on a national scale. This price gradient may indicate whether immigration contributes to changing the residential market, also possibly revealing segregation phenomena. We ran multivariate regressions in several steps on an original dataset of housing prices and socio-economic factors concerning 112 Italian provincial capitals to elucidate whether immigration is correlated with the housing market divide. Our main findings confirmed that larger immigrant populations coincide with steeper housing price gradients on a national scale. Our tests also demonstrated that the relevance of this phenomenon varies for different urban forms, confirming related to housing price dynamics between the cities of northern and southern Italy the relevance of urban density in elucidating.

This paper reports data describing development projects for new buildings according to construction costs in North-East Italy. A survey was carried out on local companies undertaking new residential development projects in two Italian regions (Veneto and Lombardy). The aim of this survey was to record new real estate construction projects, collecting both technical and socio-economic cost features. It is extremely difficult to collect such data for the Italian real estate construction sector, due to its lack of transparency, so that the novelty for the Italian scenario is the dataset itself. Another interest perspective of this survey is that socio-economic characteristics were also recorded; they are often studied in urban economics, but are usually related to property purchase prices and values, not to construction costs. The data come from an analysis of Canesi and Marella regarding the relationship between the trend of construction costs and the socio-economic conditions of the reference setting, such as the mean years of schooling of the workforce, housing market trends, and average per capita income.

Regarding environmental sustainability and market pricing, the energy class is an increasingly more decisive characteristic in the real estate sector. For this reason, a great deal of attention is now devoted to exploring new technologies, energy consumption forecasting tools, intelligent platforms, site management devices, optimised procedures, software, and guidelines. New investments and smart possibilities are currently the object of different research in energy efficiency in building stocks to reach widespread ZEB standards as soon as possible. In this light, this work focuses on analysing 13 cities in Northern Italy to understand the impact of energy class on market values. An extensive data-mining process collects information about 13,093 properties in Lombardia, Piemonte, Emilia Romagna, Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Veneto, and Trentino alto Adige. Then, a feature importance analysis and a machine learning forecasting tool help understand the influence of energy class on market prices today.

Urban transitions and urban-scape have been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and will likely be affected by the current Ukrainian-Russian conflict. These two major events have affected European urban regions and especially marginal regions. Indeed, these regions are mostly struggling with inequality, lack of optionality, interoperability, and resilience due to their energy dependency and digital asymmetries. The continuous demand for a green and digital transition to strengthen social and economic resilience sought and targeted by the European Community has driven the policy of recent years to new European Guidelines. Nevertheless, the digital transition will require sustainability targets in the urban context, changing economic, social, and ecological relationships and balances. In this context, faced with these new transitions, marginal urban regions must plan, design, build, and manage future urban planning choices in a new digital-hybrid space. Therefore, it is crucial to support these transitions with a multi-dimensional sustainability concept through economic, environmental, social, and digital measurements. Urban sustainability indicators (USIs) play an essential role in supporting urban choices and planning. The current study analyzes recent literature and European standards to verify if and how they have changed in embracing the European Policy Pillar under a new and different sustainability profile, which needs to include digital sustainability. As a matter of fact, even if the concept of digitization has been recognized as a pillar of ongoing transitions, the literature and even European indicators struggle to recognize it as a tangible and measurable indicator of sustainability. Seeking to bridge the gap between European requirements and urban practice, the aim of this study is to identify and suggest new key indicators of digitalization to enable the digital sustainability of urban planning to be measured. These indicators can be used to implement a new valuation tool capable of supporting marginal regions by promoting sustainable urban investments in this new hybrid space.

The building industry is essential for a national transition towards a circular economy (CE) in Denmark. The Danish state subsidises the Danish affordable housing sector, which is the largest single sector within the Danish building industry, making the sector an essential driver for the transition. The social components of sustainability are considered crucial to ensuring the quality of the environmental and economic components of the CE. However, social value creation (SVC) has been neglected in building processes, and public investments are being used without the policymakers thoroughly assessing the CE’s socioeconomic efficiency and effectiveness. The sector therefore needs integrated methodologies to support comprehensive decision making on the CE during construction and renovation. SVC is an apparent field for architectural firms. Two surveys were conducted among business and sustainability managers of Danish architectural firms to identify the challenges and potentials regarding assessing sustainability and SVC in architects’ practices. The results of the surveys are described and analysed in this study. Several impact categories, indicators and tools are identified, discussed and summarised in a methodological framework that can support architects in decision making about SVC in constructing and renovating affordable housing. Further refinement of the framework to support dynamic and iterative decision-making is anticipated as future work.