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This paper reflects ethnographically on law enforcement against squatting in Milan. To this end, it examines labor practices, moral economies, and everyday narratives of those who work with the institutional mandate of tackling squatting in public housing. I propose to grasp these processes considering two specific political and legal configurations that traverse the arena under investigation: the entrenched presence, in the Italian context, of what has been defined as penal populism; additionally, the increasingly pronounced prominence of an infra‐legal dimension of law. Squatting—and the way in which it is publicly managed and punished—represents a privileged lens for examining the specific forms of normative and political governance in contemporary cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years sexualised drug use, usually referred to as chemsex, has become the object of intense media health‐related panic and increasing academic scrutiny. Critical social scientists have challenged pathologising perspectives, analysing the socio‐cultural and political economy dimensions of chemsex. Against the silence of geographers in this emerging field, the paper develops a geographical relational analysis of chemsex, focusing on the experiences of gay men living with HIV in two Italian cities (Bologna; Milan) and Italian gay men living with HIV in three English cities (Leicester; London; Manchester). Demonstrating the constitutive role of place in the practice of chemsex, the paper frames place relationally, that is, as the encounter between here and there, the material and the virtual, imagined geographies and lived spaces. To emphasise the central role of place and geographical knowledge to understand chemsex, the paper builds on 'weak theory', as it conceives things as open, entangled, connected and in flux, while focusing on ordinary practices and heterogeneity in more‐than‐human worlds. Showing how chemsex represents an embodied, relational geographical encounter among different human and non‐human actors, places (both physical and digital), imaginations and desires, the paper highlights the role of sexual practices in the relational construction of place‐making, therefore calling for an increased engagement with sex itself within the field of geographies of sexualities. The paper introduces a relational geographical perspective to the analysis of chemsex. Demonstrating the constitutive role of place in the practice of chemsex, the paper frames place relationally, i.e. as the encounter between here and there, the material and the virtual, imagined geographies and lived spaces. The paper calls for an increased engagement with the materiality of sex within the field of geographies of sexualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pervasiveness of advanced technologies and their disruptive impact on society have spurred the debate on the emergence of a new industrial revolution and on its positive and negative effects, both at an individual and spatial level. This paper aims to contribute to this debate, focusing attention on the perception of changes related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and exploring new methods of analysis of the manifestations of both techno‐enthusiasm and opposition to it. Starting from the extensive literature in this field, the work adopts two research perspectives: the study of imaginaries and narratives developed around the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which convey different messages from social groups and places; the geographies of opportunity and discontent, which address the resentment expressed by some localities towards advanced technological models and growing inequalities. In this work the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not interpreted through data about the technological variables or interviews to protagonists of the phenomenon; rather, emphasis is on the points of view of non‐institutional subjects and, in particular, the opinions expressed by people on the Web. For this reason, the sentiment analysis has been adopted to identify both positive and negative polarities and the relevance of specific feelings through the selection of key words related to the notion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The empirical analysis based on this methodology focuses on the Italian case in a specific period (first and second phase of the pandemic, from January 2020 to September 2021) and, at a local level, on the comparison between four medium‐sized cities (Pisa, Lecce, Taranto and Terni). This paper also tries to extend recent contributions through the provision of new perspectives for the definition of policies designed with the involvement of the population and places regarding both the processes of technological change and the definition of new socio‐spatial models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether urbanization plays a role in determining the importance of each happiness domain on overall happiness. The analysis focuses on Italy. We exploit a multilevel model to consider regional heterogeneity in happiness determinants. We first verify whether a direct effect of urbanization exists on each specific components of happiness, as well as on overall happiness. Consistent with the findings in the literature, happiness decreases with urbanization. In the analysis of the mediating role, we find that the importance of satisfaction family explains more overall happiness in urban areas. On the contrary, satisfaction with health, friendships and environment gain more weight in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mountain communities face the threat of depopulation, as residents age or move to large cities in the lowland. This issue is pressing for Italy, where a large portion of the territory is mountainous and the overall population is rapidly aging. This paper analyses whether the autonomous status of a region affects the demographic dynamics of its mountain areas. The question is currently being fiercely debated in Italy, with border municipalities seeking to switch region in pursuit of perceived benefits, mainly in the form of the direct management of a larger portion of taxes. The analysis relies on an adjacency‐based estimation approach, including spatial regression discontinuity techniques, to compare population changes in mountain areas randomly selected from Northern Italian regions with special statutes versus neighboring regions without special statute. Measuring population changes in the 2000s shows a significant difference in the demographic dynamics in border regions, with areas in autonomous regions experiencing more favorable population dynamics. Our hypothesis is that fiscal autonomy contributes to sustainable local development and the survival of mountain communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the settling of foreigners cause a rise in anti‐immigrant sentiment due to resource competition? Or do direct interactions lead to more respectful relations? And what if one also considers the settlement of foreigners in neighbouring municipalities? Applying an instrumental variable approach to variables collected at the Italian municipality level and including neighbouring areas, this paper aims to answer these questions by considering the vote for the Lega party in 2019 European parliamentary election as a proxy for the anti‐immigration sentiment. Our results point out that, once controlling for most socio‐economic variables and remoteness, a larger presence of foreigners within the municipality reduces the vote for the Lega. In contrast, the presence of immigrants in the neighbouring municipalities does not show a significant effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to estimate, through the use of a spatial model, the determinants of fiscal policies on property tax adopted by Italian municipalities in 2014, to assess the existence of strategic interactions influencing their revenue decisions and, finally, to investigate the possible sources of such tax mimicking. The analysis evaluates the impact of political and socio‐economic variables on the local policy decisions and confirms that the choices on property tax are influenced by the neighbouring municipalities' behaviour. With regard to the tax mimicking sources, results highlight that the imitative behaviour among municipalities on their tax policy is determined mainly from spillover effects, with a decreasing effect in relation to municipal size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses four statistical distributions used to describe city size distributions: lognormal, double Pareto lognormal, q-exponential, and log-logistic. We use un-truncated city size data for the US, Spain and Italy from 1900 until 2010, and, in addition, the last available year for the remaining countries of the OECD. We estimate the four functions by maximum likelihood. To check the goodness of the fit we use the Kolmogorov- Smirnov and Cramér-von Mises tests, and compute the Akaike information criterion and Bayesian information criterion. The results show that the distribution which best fits data in most of the cases (86.76%) is the double Pareto lognormal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to detect mimicking behaviour in the tax setting of local governments which share similar political ideology. We conduct an empirical investigation of municipalities' cross-sectional data of the Marche region using spatial econometrics models. Discriminating between several sources of fiscal interaction, empirical evidence suggests that municipalities governed by the same coalition tend to implement similar tax rates according to their ideology. Resumen. El objetivo de este artículo es detectar comportamiento de imitación en la política tributaria de gobiernos locales que comparten una ideología política similar. Realizamos una investigación empírica con datos transversales de municipios de la región de las Marcas con modelos econométricos espaciales. Realizando una discriminación entre fuentes diferentes de interacción fiscal, la evidencia empírica sugiere que los municipios gobernados por la misma coalición tienden a establecer tasas fiscales similares de acuerdo con su ideología. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By exploiting the Roback model, we analyze the impact of agglomeration on both production and consumption. We postulate that the evaluation of urban amenities may vary across skill-groups. Empirically, we use the Bank of Italy's survey of household income and wealth (SHIW) dataset, and find evidence of a substantial urban rent premium, while we do not find support for an urban wage premium. We conclude that urban agglomeration is predominantly a source of positive amenities for residents and, in particular, highly-educated individuals seem to care about the welfare effects of agglomeration more than their less-educated counterparts. Survey results also suggest that urban skilled workers benefit from jobs of higher quality, and from shopping possibilities and cultural consumption opportunities, such as cinemas, theatres, and museums. Resumen Aprovechándonos del modelo de Roback, analizamos el impacto de la aglomeración tanto en la producción como en el consumo. Postulamos que la valoración de la oferta de servicios urbanos puede variar entre grupos con un grado diferente de cualificación. Empíricamente, utilizamos los datos de la encuesta del Banco de Italia sobre ingresos familiares y patrimonio (SHIW, siglas en inglés), y mientras que encontramos pruebas de una prima de renta urbana sustancial no las encontramos para una prima salarial urbana. Concluimos que la aglomeración urbana es predominantemente una fuente de ventajas positivas para los residentes y, en particular, parece que a las personas con un alto nivel educativo les importa más los efectos de bienestar de la aglomeración que a quienes poseen un nivel educativo más bajo. Los resultados de la encuesta sugieren también que la mano de obra urbana cualificada disfruta tanto de mejores puestos de trabajo como de una mayor oferta al ir de compras y oferta cultural en cuanto a cines, teatros y museos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]