Over the past 12 years, Italy has seen a reduction of over 140,000 retail businesses, including shops and street vendors, with declines particularly pronounced in historic centers and small towns. This trend, without effective urban regeneration policies and interventions to repurpose the more than 105,000 vacant shops (a quarter of which have been vacant for over a year), is expected to worsen, with the risk of losing another 114,000 retail businesses between now and 2035. Over a fifth of existing businesses would disappear, with serious consequences for the urban economy, quality of life, and social cohesion.

This situation emerges from an analysis by the Confcommercio Research Office in preparation for the national initiative "inCittà – Changing Spaces, Growing Urban Economies" on the future of cities and urban economies, taking place in Bologna from November 20th to 21st.

Confcommercio notes that an analysis of retail density (the ratio of shops to residents) also shows that many medium-large cities in central and northern Italy are more exposed to this phenomenon, while for some southern municipalities the decline is more limited, primarily due to the reduced use of online shopping.

Confcommercio proposes a National Urban Agenda to be developed jointly with the government, regions, and municipalities, to regenerate urban centers by promoting local economies and market-based service sector businesses. The goal: to create a stable and integrated framework for urban policies, harmonizing urban economic development districts and promoting shared tools. At the national level, stable coordination of urban and territorial policies is called for, promoting shared guidelines and the integration of various European and national programs and funds (NRRP, Cohesion Funds, URBACT); at the regional level, urban districts need to be enhanced and harmonized; at the municipal level, multi-year programs for the local economy are needed to combat commercial desertification.

"The desertification of shops," says Confcommercio President Carlo Sangalli, "is an economic, social, and cohesion problem: every closed shop means less safety, fewer services, and less social interaction in our cities. And without effective and timely urban regeneration interventions, we risk having veritable ghost towns by 2035."