Enabling real property : how public real estate assets can serve urban regeneration

For some time now much of Italy’s public real estate has ceased to be the object of market valorization and is accommodating highly diversified initiatives that substantiate the idea of horizontal subsidiarity and have a significant impact on urban regeneration processes. This paper addresses five major points: the new dimensions of the value of public real-estate assets; the new forms of participation and their evolution; the central importance of production induced by the emerging role of the social entrepreneur in the regeneration of real property assets and the city; the role of culture in grassroots regeneration processes; the implications of all of this on urban policy and the need for enabling rather than regulatory actions.