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This research project aims at analysing the potential demand for obsolete or abandoned buildings in the city centre of Venice by potential developers or economic operators who may be interested in starting sustainable economic activities in Venice; and at establishing how this demand is affected by public policies designed to favor the development of sustainable activities.

Many buildings and sites in the city centre of Venice are currently abandoned, or underused and in poor condition. City officials, policymakers and many other observers feel that these sites – some of which are of relatively large scale (Arsenale, Stazione Marittima, etc.) – should be redeveloped and reused in order to ensure their material and historic conservation. This reuse should be subject to at least two constraints. First, re-use should be sustainable, in the sense that it should be respectful of the specific environmental and social needs of the city. Second, if possible, re-use should attempt to offset the monoculture of tourism.

Provided that these two requirements are satisfied, searching new uses and a new identity for these urban contexts may offer new opportunities for the sustainable urban development of the city of Venice and its centre.

The goal of this research project is two-fold. First, we wish to analyse the potential demand for obsolete or abandoned buildings in the city centre by potential developers or economic operators who may be interested in starting sustainable economic activities in Venice. Second, we wish to establish how this demand is affected by public policies designed to favor the development of sustainable activities.

To attain these two goals, we will develop and administer surveys of developers and other economic operators. Our surveys will contain stated-preference questions that will ask these parties to tell us what they would undertake redevelopment projects at certain sites under specified—and hypothetical—circumstances, defined as a set of public policies, such as economic incentives, regulatory relief, and others.

Our research will be organised in the following three phases:

Phase 1: Our first order of business is to examine the concept of “sustainable re-use” of urban sites. We will identify the qualitative and quantitative attributes of, and possible avenues for, re-use.

Phase 2: Secondly, we will identify possible public policy options for stimulating sustainable investments at, and the economic re-use of, these sites.

Phase 3: After identifying the constraints and the possible avenues for sustainable re-use, we will estimate the demand for abandoned or underused sites by economic operators using the results of stated-preference surveys that we will develop and administer to a sample of economic operators. At the same time, we will identify what kind of incentives might encourage investments in these urban contexts and the preferred public policy options.