ISTAT has introduced a high granularity mapping system that allows the most fragile areas of large Italian cities to be precisely identified. For the first time, socio-economic hardship is no longer read only at municipal or neighborhood level, but extends to portions of the territory that include at least 250 residents, so as to protect confidentiality and at the same time offer a much clearer snapshot of the differences within cities. 25 cities participate in this experimental phase, including Rome, Milan and Naples, with different subdivision criteria: urban planning zones for Rome, NIL – Local Identity Nuclei for Milan.
IDISE and the nine indicators of discomfort
At the center of the project is the IDISE – Index of Socio-Economic Disadvantage, built by combining nine indicators linked to work, income, education and social vulnerability. These include the share of low-income families, NEETs, school dropouts, the employment rate for 25-64 year olds and the percentage of single elderly people without their own home.
The reference value is 100: when an area exceeds it it enters the category of ADUs – Urban Hardship Areas, i.e. areas where the concentration of fragility is higher than the city average. The index is relative to the single city, therefore a 100 for Milan is not equivalent to a 100 for Rome.
Rome: a very fragmented geography of hardship
Rome is the city where socio-economic hardship appears most broken up in space. Using urban planning zones, ISTAT shows how ADU areas are not only concentrated in the extreme suburbs, but also appear in more internal areas.
The highest IDISE values are found in Tufello, Tor Cervara and Foro Italico. In particular, Foro Italico is an emblematic case: the presence of a large Roma camp until 2020-2021, which was then evacuated, had a strong impact on housing poverty, low income and social vulnerability, leaving a clear trace in the 2021 data.
In the eastern suburbs and in some south-western quadrants, chains of areas above the 100 threshold are observed, which create real belts of fragility. Here the hardship is not an isolated point but a territorial continuity, with problems of employment, education and family structure that reinforce each other.
Milan: close inequalities
Milan is perhaps the most surprising case. The city that often leads the quality of life rankings has strong internal fractures. The area with the highest hardship is Ponte Lambro-Monlué, beyond the eastern ring road, an extreme suburban area with a low employment rate and accumulated social fragility.
But IDISE also reports high values in San Siro, a much more central area, showing how in Milan hardship coexists a few blocks from very wealthy areas. Since the analysis uses NILs, these differences emerge with great precision: the growing city and the struggling one are not separated by kilometers, but often only by a few streets.
Naples: hardship as a compact urban block
Naples, on the other hand, shows a much more continuous concentration of discomfort. Many areas exceed the IDISE 100, but the highest peaks are in the Mercato district and Pendino. This structure reflects a city in which socio-economic hardship is historically intertwined with urban morphology: central neighborhoods but with high population density, low average income, fragile employment and high share of NEETs. IDISE confirms that fragility here is not peripheral, but is inserted in the very heart of the city. The ISTAT maps show that Naples does not have many small separate pockets, but a large and compact core of vulnerability, where multiple negative indicators overlap in the same space.
Because these data change urban policies
According to ISTAT, the strength of these maps lies in their operational usefulness: administrators can understand the causes of discomfort and plan targeted interventions, integrating the IDISE with the presence of services in the area. The data published is updated to 2021, influenced in part by the pandemic, but the 2023 data and the extension to all cities over 50 thousand inhabitants will arrive in the coming months, expanding the ability to read and compare between urban contexts.
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