They Like to Do It in Public: A Quantitative Analysis of Culture-Led Regeneration Projects in ITALY

This paper presents and discusses a quantitative analysis of culture-led urban regeneration initiatives in Italy. It draws on a database of projects built using the filter of the national funding schemes launched between 2012 and 2018. The main objective of the research is to build an overview of the phenomenon of culture-based urban regeneration in Italy, recognizing common trends and recurring dynamics. The projects in the database are analyzed quantitatively on the basis of 28 attributes, taking into consideration different aspects such as the projects’ localization, the typology, dimension and ownership of the spatial assets mobilized, the relationship with public policies, and the scale of actors and networks involved in the projects. The findings show that culture-led regeneration initiatives “like to do it in public”; namely, to achieve their objectives—to “do culture”—they seek to connect with the public sector to receive forms of economic, material, and organizational support, such as public spaces in which to host their activities. Therefore, the interaction with the public administration is interpreted as the sine qua non condition for the success of culture-led urban regeneration initiatives and to ensure that these are able to generate strong and durable impacts on the revitalization and regeneration of distressed urban neighborhoods.