ABSTRACT
It is a common belief that Italy like many other European countries in the 1990s has attained a good ‘average’ level of housing provision. The most recent (1991) Census reported that there was a total of 25 million dwellings, occupied or unoccupied, for 19.9 million households, and 104.1 million rooms for 56.8 million inhabitants. As a result, in Italy today, nearly 2 rooms are available for each inhabitant and 1.26 dwellings for each household. Dwellings are spacious, with an average of 4.3 rooms, and are equipped with basic facilities. The drive for rehabilitation quickly gained momentum in the 1970s and 1980s and has accounted for almost 50 per cent of the total investment in housing in recent years. The proportion of owneroccupiers is quite high and accounted for 70 per cent of all occupied dwellings in 1991 (Table 13.1).
