What policy for the no man’s land? Regulatory / fiscal instruments for the sustainable use of land in suburban and marginal areas in the South of Italy.

The use and impact of alternative policy instruments for the promotion of a sustainable use of land in suburban and marginal areas will be discussed. Some theoretical models will be used to discuss recent policy proposal and reforms, like that for a regulatory intervention, proposed to limit at national level the use of agricultural land for urban and industrial infrastructures, and to promote at the same time restoration and reuse of existing brown fields and abandoned agricultural land. Also, the impact of the reform of the fiscal policy with the extension of the property tax (IMU) to all houses and to agricultural land. The main thesis that will be elaborated is that all policy instruments will be doomed to failure if based on a model of the market for land not sufficiently articulated to take in to account the extreme heterogeneity of the Italian territory. In fact, the basic economic model behind most of these policy proposals is that of two competing demands for a limited amount of land, on one side the demand of land for agricultural productions, on the other that for constructions, of residential buildings, industrial plants, public infrastructures. According to the most simplified model this competition happens at the “border” of towns. Based on the analysis of recent demographic and economic dynamics in the South of Italy, we will try to argue that many suburban areas and marginal territories are better described by other, more realistic models. First of all we will consider some phenomena that clearly differentiate the dynamic of the land market of these marginal areas from the classical model of the direct competition for land between agricultural and urban uses. - the abandonment of agricultural land, due to the decline of farmers incomes. - the strong growth of the urban sprawl. - the decline of demand for housing due to the stagnation or decline of demographic trends. - the inefficiency of the market for house renting, that leads specially in rural areas to a demand for “new houses” paradoxically associated to a growing stock of empty houses - the financial crisis of municipalities and regions, that is leading to the worsening of quality and quantity of services provided to these areas. These parallel phenomena are leading to the detachment of the urban boundaries from the agricultural boundaries, leaving in the middle a growing extension of “no man’s land” with no significant land market, no urban services and no agricultural production. Therefore we will discuss possible policy alternatives, tailored to the marginal areas in the South of Italy. Instruments could be the modulation of the property tax, and of tariffs for public services, and the design of innovative services, or systems of service provision, specially for transport, waste treatment, commerce infrastructures. The strategic objective could be to reduce the “no man’s land” surface, promoting a new model of sustainable settlements.