Despite the devastating effects of the real estate bubble and the financial crisis besetting Europe, in the past years Italy has seen an acceleration of its civic program through public institutions and private capital. Unlike the European countries that in the 1980s carried out large-scale programs of urban regeneration and metropolitan re-planning, Italy had to wait for the 1990s to begin shedding the stigma of being Europe’s Cinderella, while giving form to its contribution to the re-design of cities and territories. While elsewhere big property investments have waned, in Italy these have been maintained in order not to penalize the interests of investors, especially foreign ones, who had placed stakes on the real-estate market, particularly in the ‘warmer’ metropolitan areas, like Milan...