ABSTRACT
Bologna and Frankfurt are characterised by very different traditions with regard to accommodation policies: whereas 85 per cent of people in Frankfurt live in rented apartments, in Bologna this percentage does not exceed 35 percent. Such a difference is linked with Italian accommodation policies that have provided incentives for widespread access to home ownership instead of developing a supply of rental apartments, as is the case in other countries of North and Central Europe. In Bologna, the quantity of public housing managed by the local authority and offered to the public at controlled rents each year is substantially insufficient to respond to the demand for low-cost/rent-controlled accommodation. In some cases, the municipality decides to recognise and regularise the illegal occupations, asking the immigrants to pay rent while trying to promote their integration into the neighbourhood.
