Tactical Urbanism Interventions for the Urban Environment: Which Economic Impacts?

Abstract

In the last decades, the emergence of new social, environmental, and economic demands, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led urban planning to innovate its themes, methods, and approaches. In this context, temporary urbanism has emerged as a mainstream approach. How-ever, the impacts of temporary approaches to urban planning are far from being fully understood. In this light, this study focuses on one of the mainstream approaches to temporary urbanism, tactical urbanism, and tries to understand its economic impacts on contemporary cities. Indeed, despite the growing interest in tactical urbanism interventions and their value as an urban regeneration tool, there are no specific reflections focused on investigating their economic effects. Based on these premises, this paper focuses on different tactical urbanism experiences in the Italian context and tries to assess the economic impacts of tactical urbanism interventions by adopting the lens of real estate values as a suitable proxy when dealing with urban environments. The first obtained results show that the experiences of tactical urbanism, partly because of their temporary nature and their tendency toward minimal intervention, fail to trigger regeneration processes or produce significant economic impacts on the territory. Instead, such experiences can play a role in accelerating or consolidating urban regeneration processes already underway, and, in this sense, they contribute to the generation of economic impact on the territory.

1. Introduction

In the last decades, the emergence of new social, environmental, and economic demands and the evident failure of traditional planning have led urban planning to deeply innovate its themes, methods, and intervention approaches [1,2]. Indeed, its primary focus has shifted from governing urban expansion and radical transformations to regenerating consolidated cities by giving prominence to the themes of reversibility and reuse [3,4].

As a consequence of this shift, the debate about vacancies in urban contexts has gained a central role in the urban planning discourse of many European cities [5], and the urgent need to find quick and tailor-made solutions to recover vacant and neglected urban areas has triggered the spreading of new tactics of urban spaces’ temporary use [6].

Traditionally, the concept of temporariness in urban transformations is linked to self-organized and non-institutionalized experiences [7], dealing with vacant and neglected areas [8].

However, in recent years, temporary uses have been included in the urban planning domain [9], thus providing the concept of “temporary” with a new meaning: from its original meaning as a ”limited in time” intervention, it has moved on to identify short-term and easily reversible actions, thus allowing for testing cities’ and communities’ reactions to them before their permanent inclusion in urban strategies. According to this perspective, indeed, they can represent a valuable urban planning tool “to react to a world where the future is more uncertain and less secure, and a response to rapid […] changes that are shortening the present into smaller and smaller time frames” [10].

Based on this main difference between non-institutional and institutional approaches to temporariness, which Bragaglia and Rossignolo [11] identify as “temporariness as practice” and “temporariness as policy,” the emerging paradigm of temporary urbanism can be realized through multiple forms of short-term actions [11]. In greater detail, short-term experiences belonging to the “temporariness as practice” category, resting on explicitly challenging dominant and institutional urban development strategies, find their most frequent realization in:

• Autonomous geographies, considered as “spaces where people desire to constitute non-capitalist, egalitarian and solidaristic forms of political, social, and economic organization through a combination of resistance and creation” [12]. In this sense, they can be seen as radical forms of urban interventions, openly challenging institutional planning and distancing from public administrations’ agendas. In this sense, autonomous geographies cannot be merely intended as spatial strategies for urban transformation but rather find their distinctive features in their social relevance and in their stress on the interventions’ participatory and ethical connotations [13];
• Guerrilla urbanism practice, intended as a planning approach “recognizing both the ability of citizens and opportunities in the existing urban conditions for radical and everyday changes against the dominant forces in the society” [7]. Also, this practice openly distances itself from the institutional planning domain in its attempt to rearrange the “official” public space’s structure and release opportunities for new relationships and meanings creation.

Instead, short-term experiences related to the “temporariness as policy” domain find their best-known realizations in:

• The Do-it-Yourself (DIY) Urbanism movement, born in the United States, which consists of actions implemented by residents to address urban issues and results in spontaneous interventions to improve everyday experiences in public spaces [14]. From this perspective, such a kind of temporary urbanism’s realization finds its specificity in a non-professional, rather than in a non-institutional, attitude.
• Pop-up urbanism, which takes up the widely used “pop-up” locution for places that occupy a site for a limited amount of time [15] and relates it to urban planning issues, thus identifying quick and low-cost actions to deal with vacant spaces [16].

Among these various forms of temporary urbanism, differing from each other in their interpretation of temporariness [17], however, tactical urbanism has emerged as a mainstream approach in the urban agenda. It is defined as “an approach to neighborhood building and activation using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions and policies” [18]. It can be considered a realization of the “temporariness as policy” approach because, in the last two decades, it has been implemented by a wide range of actors, from public administrators and private companies to non-profit organizations and citizens. Its main feature, common to other temporary urbanism approaches, lies in its grounding in an open and iterative process that, by leveraging the potential related to social engagement, brings intentional and flexible responses for public spaces [18]. Tactical urbanism approaches, indeed, find their legitimacy in the spreading of the consciousness that urban planning actions cannot control every process’s variables and, in this sense, it allows for correction.

It is not easy to date the entrance of tactical urbanism into the urban discourse because it is possible to find several historical precedents of this impulse to create “temporary and low-cost impulses to the challenges of urban life” [18]. However, its rise and spread can be dated back to 2010 in North America under the pressure of four relevant phenomena: people coming back to cities, the Great Recession, the spreading of the internet, and the growing detachment between government and communities [19]. Since then, this ”innovative” approach to urbanism has rapidly spread to Europe, leading to the birth of several relevant experiences of tactical urbanism, which adapt the plurality of American approaches to the European urban environment’s specificities.

Based on the different reasons and actors behind their conception, tactical urbanism’s most common applications can be categorized as [18]:

• Promoted by local communities to overcome the conventional project delivery process, thus directly demonstrating the possibility of change and exercising their “right to the city”;
• As a tool for municipal planning, private developers, and non-profit organizations to engage local communities during the design and development process;
• As a “phase 0” tool used by cities or developers to test interventions before their permanent implementation.

If, in their application as a “right to the city” exercise, tactical urbanism interventions can be traced to the domain of “temporariness practice” approaches, the second and third applications’ typologies mainly relate to the “temporariness policy” domain. However, these three tactical urbanism applications are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, often the first has been the basis for the second, which has led to the third, thus promoting tactical urbanism spreading as a municipal planning tool.

Nowadays, scholars are divided on the role and impacts of tactical urbanism approaches in re-shaping our cities. Indeed, on the one hand, these approaches are recommended as quick and tailor-made solutions to promptly meet the rapid changes required by contemporary cities and to address the renewed need for public spaces [20,21]. On the other hand, they are criticized for the risk of being mere marketing strategies, for the uncertainty of their effects in the long-term scenario [22], or for being a vehicle of gentrification, thus displacing vulnerable populations [23].

What is true is that the impacts of temporary approaches to planning on urban development dynamics and their possible role in cities’ reshaping are far from being fully understood and assessed [24]. Based on these premises, in Section 2, this paper deals with the investigation of tactical urbanism’s impacts by describing the adopted research method. It moves from providing an overview of the scientific debate to focusing on the values and impacts of tactical urbanism interventions as urban regeneration, which is described in Section 3. This overview, resulting from a literature review of scientific papers dealing with tactical urbanism, finds that there are no specific reflections on the possible economic impacts related to tactical urbanism interventions’ implementation.

For this reason, this paper starts addressing this gap in the scientific debate on tac-tical urbanism and focuses on understanding if and to what extent tactical urbanism interventions, as small-scale and minimal urban regeneration processes, can trigger eco-nomic dynamics by adopting the lens of real estate values. To this end, Section 4 focuses on several tactical urbanism case studies in the Italian context belonging to different realities in scale and real estate dynamics, and, after describing them, provides an analysis of the real estate market values’ trends in their influence areas with the same trend related to a larger reference territorial scale. Finally, in Section 5, the analysis’s results are discussed, and some final reflections and future research perspectives are drawn [10].

2. Research Method

Regeneration projects can bring important effects to the nearby context and increase the value of nearby properties. In fact, it has been widely discussed how external characteristics can influence house prices both positively and negatively and how the impact can be different from country to country. D’Acci [25] explored different features that could influence the overall quality of the urban space and home values by analyzing the literature and several case studies. Proximity to green spaces, for example, can vary from +0.016% [26] to +117% [27], as in the case of the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta; the view, if unpleasant, can decrease by −25% the property value [28]; meanwhile, a generally attractive landscape could increase it by +5/12% [29] and up to +68% in the case of a full ocean view adjacent to the coast [30]. Also, open space can have a negative impact, −6% [28], in the case of degradation and low flow, and it can also have a positive impact, +17% [31], if in proximity to a cleaned-up vacant lot.

An Intervention of urban regeneration is aimed at improving the quality of the open space and ensuring, at the same time, affordability, access to services, and involving citizens in the decision process [32]. The effect provided directly impacts the Positional Value (PV) of a building, defined as “part of the real estate value given from the extrinsic characteristics” [25].

As discussed in the previous section, tactical urbanism interventions aim to propose practices for the regeneration of urban spaces with the involvement of social components in order to carry out low-cost, easily replicable, flexible interventions and to produce urban fabric reactivation effects that go beyond the specific area in which the works are concentrated, which is usually circumscribed. Moreover, the extreme adaptability of interventions to the context’s physical, economic, and social conditions means that they can be replicated relatively easily in similar situations within the same urban body or grow incrementally over time. Because of these potentials, tactical urbanism, which has gone from being an alternative mode of intervention to encompassing established practices of the design and management of public space, is now recognized as one of the main levers for the implementation of urban regeneration strategies based on the cumulative effect of punctual actions coordinated with each other that, although temporary, can generate effects in the long term [33]. Beyond its possible realizations, the familiar principle underlying this approach is that each intervention triggers a process of multiplication of regenerative effects well beyond its punctual and temporary character, a characteristic that, despite its “informality,” has leant it to disciplinary attention as one of the main paradigms of reference in the debate on the contemporary city [34].

From this perspective, it seems interesting to analyze the economic impact of tactical urban planning interventions in different contexts and territorial areas to highlight whether and under what conditions, effects are realized in reality, even in the long term, and what are the leading indicators of this change process.

Consistent with the new theories of urban regeneration [35], the effects of a tactical urban planning intervention do not only concern physical space but must also be examined concerning a broader vision that invokes the dimensions of sustainability, namely the social, environmental, and economic dimensions. In particular, this paper, starting from this assumption, aims to investigate whether and under what conditions tactical urbanism interventions have generated virtuous processes of public space redevelopment and whether this effect is also reflected in an increase in real estate prices.

Considering the holistic impacts generated by these interventions and their process of physical change, the framework proposed by Lang [36] has been taken as a main reference to structure the methodological approach, which has been further implemented and detailed. As it is possible to see from Figure 1, among the dimensions involved, the economic one has been investigated with a particular reference to the effect on the real estate market and the residential asset class. The flowchart presented is a preliminary proposal because, to understand the overall impact generated by tactical urbanism interventions, it is necessary to detail with additional criteria the economic dimension and to break down the other three.

After a literature review aimed at analyzing how other scholars have faced this topic and if correlations between economic impact and tactical urbanism exist, the analysis to investigate existing case studies was developed in three phases and on three scales:

• National levels: Experiences of tactical urbanism interventions located in the Italian context were selected and a market value analysis was performed considering both the city and its micro-zone and, as a time horizon, before (ex-ante), during (in-itinere), and after (ex-post) the realization of the projects;
• Urban level: Experiences of tactical urbanism interventions located in the city of Milan were selected, and a market value analysis was performed considering both the city and its micro-zone and, as a time horizon, before (ex-ante), during (in-itinere), and after (ex-post) the realization of the projects;
• Local level: Experiences of tactical urbanism interventions located in a specific Milanese neighborhood (micro-zone) were selected, and a market value analysis was performed considering both the micro-zone and the nearby properties and, as a time horizon, before (ex-ante), during (in-itinere), and after (ex-post) the realization of the projects.

The market value analysis was performed based on asking prices provided by the real estate platform Immobiliare.it, as the division in micro-zones is taken as a reference for the analysis. This choice stems from the low level of transparency of the Italian real estate market and the impossibility of freely accessing transaction prices.

The results of the analysis are presented in Section 4.

3. The Value of Tactical Urbanism Interventions as Urban Regeneration Projects

In this context, it results interesting and strategic to investigate the role of tactical urbanism projects for the physical and social regeneration of a neighborhood, and further understand in which contexts they have been mainly analyzed by other scholars, as well as their capacity for raising or decreasing property values by taking into consideration also the most influential factors in play.

Among the economic evaluation methodologies, and, in detail, the revealed preference ones, the Hedonic Price Methods (HPM) methodology is aimed at investigating the influence of specific characteristics on the formation of the value of an asset [37]. Therefore, within this context, the HPM can be considered the most coherent approach to assessing the impact of tactical urbanism interventions on the housing market value. Starting from this assumption, a literature review was developed by searching the Scopus database and using, firstly, the keywords “hedonic price” AND “tactical urbanism,” and, secondly, “hedonic price” AND “market value,” but no documents were found.

The search then moved to understanding how this topic has been investigated and in which fields; in fact, a new analysis using the same database was developed by narrowing to the keyword “tactical urbanism,” and 160 papers resulted. As it is possible to see in Figure 2, the attention to this topic increased from 2020 simultaneously with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic; in fact, almost 60% of the contributions have been published in the last four years.

To understand the most frequent keywords and clusters of keywords combined together in the papers found, the VOSviewer software version 1.6.17 supported the analysis and the visualization of the co-occurrence network. Twenty-five keywords resulted from the investigation, and five clusters were developed, which specify the different domains of research (Figure 3). The main important concepts underlined by the network consist of developing strategic approaches to design sustainable neighborhoods [38]; the adoption of sustainable practices through transport policy in the COVID-19 era [39]; and the engagement of the community and the promotion of policies to improve the overall quality of open spaces [40,41].

Focusing on the Italian context, a total of 18 papers resulted from the analysis, which is in line with the trend previously highlighted; the majority (in fact, 75%) were published from 2020 onward, and they touch on several topics. For instance, [42,43] discuss the role of active travel in increasing the resilience of urban transport systems, describing the main policies implemented in various pandemic phases and stressing the importance of tactical urbanism interventions to support walking and cycling. Meanwhile, [44] illustrates two case studies, one in Paris and one in Rome, of the temporary (re)use of vacant spaces, underlining the importance of local communities, while [45] defines a qualitative matrix to evaluate the effectiveness of the project over time. Furthermore, [46] explores the role of temporary gardens in tactical urbanism. Additionally, [47,48] present the concept of the 15-minute city, connecting it to the potentials of tactical urbanism actions conceived as long-term strategies to regenerate open spaces. In this context, [49] describes, in addition to tactical urbanism, two other approaches to design the urban space, proposing an intervention located in the city of Milan where two types of software have been applied to estimate the environmental benefits generated. Also, [24,50] recognizes the strength of these kinds of strategies for fostering transformations belonging to a strategic vision, and [48,51] list tactical urbanism among the strategies to design ”Healthy and Salutogenic cities.” At the same time, [52,53,54,55] critically discuss their pros and cons and the possible negative effects, such as lines of tensions and social inequalities. Meanwhile, [56] combines digitalization with the concept of tactical urbanism actions to make more inclusive cities, while [57] experiments with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). All these contributions highlight the importance of community engagement alongside the process of concept design to increase citizens’ interest in planning choices [58] and in regeneration activities; experimenting, for example, with do-it-yourself (DIY) urban practices [59].

Despite the interest detected from the analysis of the literature in tactical urbanism and the wide span of topics described (including social engagement, environmental benefits, mobility issues, and urban resilience), there are no studies focused on investigating its economic effect. In order to fill this gap highlighted by the literature review on tactical urbanism, the next section is focused on understanding if and to what extent tactical urbanism interventions, as small-scale and minimal urban regeneration processes, can trigger economic dynamics by adopting the lens of real estate values. The methodology adopted is based on the analysis of different Italian case studies belonging to different realities in scale and real estate dynamics.

4. Case Studies Analysis

The willingness to understand if and to what extent tactical urbanism interventions, as small-scale and minimal urban regeneration processes, can trigger economic dynamics has led to delving into analyzing some Italian case studies.

The bottom-up and participatory nature of many tactical urbanism experiences brings along the high social potential of this innovative approach to urban planning [60]. However, there is no clear evidence related to the economic impacts of tactical urbanism interventions, which is also because these experiments arise as temporary and they are relatively recent [24]. Based on these reasons, this analysis tries to assess the economic impacts of tactical urbanism interventions by adopting the lens of real estate values as a suitable proxy when dealing with urban environments [61].

In greater detail, this analysis compares residential market and rent values trends in each selected case study’s influence area with the same trend related to a larger territorial scale. This comparison allows an understanding of whether areas affected by tactical urbanism interventions show higher growth in the considered values in a specific period, thus providing preliminary insight into these temporary approaches’ economic impacts and these impacts’ relationships with different territorial contexts.

Indeed, the reference territorial context’s conditions (i.e., the existing urban attractiveness or the tactical urbanism’s integration within a broader urban regeneration strategic framework) can heavily and diversely affect its response to tactical experiments and these experiences’ impacts on the real estate market.

Such relationships between the single intervention and its reference territorial context are crucial for outlining an assessment of tactical urbanism’s economic impacts, even if preliminary and partial. For this reason, this analysis considers different tactical urbanism case studies in the Italian context belonging to different realities in scale and real estate dynamics. These case studies can be traced back to two main groups:

• Tactical urbanism experiences in Italy. This group involves tactical urbanism case studies in different Italian cities mainly characterized by negative or stagnant trends in real estate values [62];
• Tactical urbanism experiences in Milan. This group involves tactical urbanism experiences in Milan, whose real estate market stands as an outlier in the national context due to prices’ order of magnitude and their dramatic growth in the last decades. Furthermore, these experiences belong to an institutional and strategic program launched by the Milan municipality in 2018: the Piazze Aperte Program [63].

4.1. Tactical Urbanism Experiences in Italy

In recent years, the Italian planning scenery has seen the birth of different tactical urbanism experiences, which stand as innovation and experimentation opportunities starting from different places. These experiences are often led by active citizens and advocacy planners and share some main intervention approaches, such as the self-construction of neglected and marginal public spaces or transforming streets or parking lots into public spaces [62]. Among them, this study deals with ten different tactical urbanism experiments, which stand as a representative case studies sample in terms of intervention approaches, geographical localization, the reference urban context’s scale, real estate market dynamics, and the implementation year (Figure 4):

• Park-Urka in Taranto. This tactical urbanism experiment, dating back to 2009, aims at creating a new playground in one of the city’s squares through a participatory design and a construction workshop [64].
• Open Bricolage in Rome. This intervention, included in a broader urban regeneration initiative developed in Rome between 2011 and 2012, provides a residual and neglected public space in Via Fortebraccio with new equipment inspired by the domestic environment [65].
• Costruire Largo Milano in Cinisello Balsamo. This experience resulted from a six-month project developed in 2013 that transformed a former parking lot into a multi-functional public space by resorting to participatory artistic and self-construction workshops [66].
• Parking day in Massa Carrara. This tactical urbanism experience, dating back to 2013, works on transforming a parking lot into a square to be lived in by local communities [67].
• Relazioni-Cantiere Aperto in Rosarno. This intervention, resulting from a collaborative process based on active citizens’ involvement in 2013, aims at transforming a harsh and unsafe space into a public space for playing and open-air social events [62].
• FLPP—Contro-occupazione di un micro-spazio invaso dalle automobili in Sassari. This 2015 tactical experiment provides the San Donato district with a new public space near a primary school by releasing it from cars [68].
• Dispersione zero in Sassari. This experiment, developed in 2015 and funded by a program to tackle school dropout, works on transforming the pavement leading to the school through the use of colors and wood construction [69].
• Piazza del Popol Giost in Reggio Emilia. This intervention, made in 2020 in Reggio Emilia’s historical center, transforms the open space in front of a school from parking to a livable space with urban furniture [70].
• Piazza Santa Maria del Fonte in Bari. This intervention is conceived within the Open Space program, launched by the Bari municipality in 2020, to promote sustainable mobility and public spaces, thus meeting the new needs raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. It involves square pedestrianization and its equipment includes pavement painting and urban furniture [71].
• Via Milano in Bologna. This tactical urbanism experiment, developed in 2021, aims for a new spatial configuration and the pedestrianization of Via Milano, a street with no specific relevance in the urban mobility system [72].

These different experiences are taken as case studies toward a preliminary investigation of the economic impacts of tactical urbanism interventions through the real estate market lens. In this sense, each intervention’s influence area’s average residential market value trend is compared with the same for the whole municipality.

The tactical intervention’s influence area in this analysis, referring to the whole Italian context, is placed as equal to the reference municipality micro-zone as defined by Immobiliare.it, one of the leading real estate platforms in Italy [73]. The choice of this platform for the municipalities’ zoning and, as a consequence, for data mining, lies in its providing a more detailed division of municipal territories in micro-zones, according to a homogeneity criterion for real estate market conditions, than the official database (e.g., developed by Agenzia delle Entrate, a tax agency of the Italian public administration under the Ministry of Economy and Finance) of real estate prices (Osservatorio del Mercato Immobiliare—OMI) [74].

However, because Immobiliare.it provides data about real estate offer prices starting from 2014, this analysis focuses on case studies dated after 2014, thus allowing for making some comments on the possible impacts of tactical urbanism interventions on real estate price variation (

Table 1. Comparison of residential assets’ average market value trends in the tactical urbanism intervention’s influence area and in the whole municipality between 2014 and 2022 (authors’ elaboration on Immobiliare.it data).

ID	Year	Tactical Urbanism Intervention	Average Residential Market Value (€/sqm)				Average Residential Market Value Variation (%)
			Aug 2014	Jan 2017	Jan 2020	Oct 2022	14–22	17–22	20–22
1	2015	FLPP	1201	1108	957	1031	−14.15%	−6.95%	7.73%
	2015	Dispersione zero	1362	1241	1141	1240	−8.96%	−0.08%	8.68%
	-	SASSARI	1453	1291	1234	1239	−14.73%	−4.03%	0.41%
2	2020	Piazza del Popol Giost	1573	1430	1504	1821	15.77%	27.34%	21.08%
	-	REGGIO EMILIA	1633	1479	1531	1822	11.57%	23.19%	19.01%
3	2020	Piazza Santa Maria del Fonte	2050	1690	1460	1441	−29.71%	−14.73%	−1.30%
	-	BARI	2258	2025	1823	1880	−16.74%	−7.16%	3.13%
4	2021	Via Milano	2575	2579	2854	2912	13.09%	12.91%	2.03%
	-	BOLOGNA	2753	2620	3010	3239	17.65%	23.63%	7.61%

, Figure 5).

This preliminary comparison reveals that it is impossible to make general comments on the impacts of tactical urbanism interventions on the real estate market dynamics; instead, a case-by-case approach to this investigation is required. Indeed, these small-scale urban regeneration experiments are related to the average market value variation in different ways.

For instance, in Sassari, where the real estate market is affected by a steady depression in values with some recovery signals in recent years, the comparison with the average market value trends at the municipality level shows a possible positive impact of tactical urbanism interventions. Indeed, in both areas affected by these urban regeneration experiments, the market dynamics are more positive than the average municipal ones. In this sense, these interventions can be considered responsible for re-aligning market values in the influence area to the municipality level. In the case studies of Bari and Bologna, the residential assets’ market value variation in tactical urbanism experiences’ influence areas follows the same trend observed at the municipality level, thus hinting at no specific influence of these interventions on real estate market dynamics. However, it is worth mentioning that, except for Sassari, the analyzed experiences refer to 2020 and 2021; thus, the limited observation period can affect the results of this investigation.

4.2. Tactical Urbanism Experiences in Milan: The Piazze Aperte Program

The investigation of the possible economic impacts related to tactical urbanism interventions through the real estate market lens can be better focused by analyzing the case of Milan, which hosts the most relevant and widespread experience of tactical urbanism in Italy. This experience is related to the Piazze Aperte (Open Squares) program, launched by the Milan municipality in 2018 to bring open spaces back to the center of neighborhood spatial systems and communities’ lives. It is devoted to converting former streets and parking areas into equipped public spaces through tactical urbanism techniques [63]. The Piazze Aperte program stands as a valuable case study for attempting to understand tactical urbanism interventions from an economic point of view for two main reasons:

• The typology of the tactical interventions, which can be traced to the domain of “temporariness as policy” approach. In greater detail, its applications can be read as “phase 0” tools used by the Milan municipality to test interventions before their permanent implementation. Most of these interventions, after a preliminary “test” phase, have been made permanent, thus allowing for the presence of a long-term perspective, which is essential for investigating economic impacts.
• The high number of implemented interventions. This program has allowed for the development of 40 tactical urbanism interventions from 2018 to 2022, thus making more than 25,000 sqm of public spaces pedestrian and livable thanks to the installation of new furniture, benches, flower pots, and ping pong tables. This program has also been supported and extended by the public notice Piazze Aperte in ogni quartiere (squares open in every neighborhood), launched by the Milan municipality in 2019 to identify new spaces for transformation [75]. Thanks to this, citizens’ involvement, considered a crucial factor for the program’s success, has been widened to each step of the process: from the area proposal to the co-design and the realization of interventions [76].

Concerning the analysis of the possible economic impacts related to tactical urbanism in Milan, it moves to consider the 38 experiences implemented by the municipality between 2018 and 2021. They are widespread across the municipal territory, especially in its peripheral area, because they are conceived in a strategic framework toward promoting urban regeneration in all of the city’s neighborhoods (Figure 6). Focusing on these 38 case studies, as already performed for the experiences in other Italian contexts, the analysis compares the residential assets’ market value trends in the intervention’s influence area between 2015 and 2022 with the same trend observed at the municipal scale (

Table 2. Comparison of residential assets’ average market value trends in the tactical urbanism intervention’s influence area and in the Milan municipality between 2015 and 2022 (authors’ elaboration on Immobiliare.it data).

ID	Year	Tactical Urbanism Intervention	Average Residential Market Value (€/sqm)				Average Residential Market Value Variation (%)
			Jan 2015	Jan 2017	Jan 2020	Oct 2022	15–17	17–20	20–22
1	2018	Piazza San Luigi	3185	3268	3833	4801	2.61% *	17.29%	25.3% *
2	2018	Piazza Angilberto II	2518	2386	2962	3735	−5.24%	24.14% *	26.1% *
3	2018	Piazza Dergano	2414	2296	2603	3292	−4.89%	13.37%	26.5% *
4	2019	Via Spoleto/Via Venini	2736	2712	3434	4346	−0.88% *	26.62% *	26.6% *
5	2019	Piazzale Stazione Genova	5641	5802	7202	7347	2.85% *	24.13% *	2.0%
6	2019	Piazza Gasparri	2414	2296	2603	3292	−4.89%	13.37%	26.5% *
7	2019	Porta Belloveso	2481	2386	2857	3521	−3.83%	19.74%	23.2% *
8	2019	Piazzale Lavater	4278	4226	5486	6303	−1.22%	29.82% *	14.9%
9	2019	P.le della Cooperazione	2250	2113	2218	2658	−6.09%	4.97%	19.8% *
10	2019	Piazzale Corvetto	2518	2386	2962	3735	−5.24%	24.14% *	26.1% *
11	2019	Piazza Alfieri	2956	2845	3182	3558	−3.76%	11.85%	11.8%
12	2019	Via Abbiati	2956	2845	3182	3558	−3.76%	11.85%	11.8%
13	2019	Via Guido Reni	3637	3517	4605	5251	−3.30%	30.94% *	14.0%
14	2019	Santa Rita da Cascia	2830	2799	3227	3874	−1.10% *	15.29%	20.0% *
15	2019	Via Gigante	2956	2845	3182	3558	−3.76%	11.85%	11.8%
16	2019	Via Rovereto/via Giacosa	2736	2712	3434	4346	−0.88% *	26.62% *	26.6% *
17	2020	Piazza Sicilia	4793	4874	6080	6452	1.69% *	24.74% *	6.1%
18	2020	Piazza Minniti	3872	4098	5206	6108	5.84% *	27.04% *	17.3% *
19	2020	Largo Balestra, Giambellino	2830	2799	3227	3874	−1.10% *	15.29%	20.0% *
20	2020	Via Pacini	3637	3517	4605	5251	−3.30%	30.94% *	14.0%
21	2020	Piazzale Tripoli, Via Zanzur	3521	3450	4436	4862	−2.02%	28.58% *	9.6%
22	2020	Via Monte Velino	3185	3268	3833	4801	2.61% *	17.29%	25.3% *
23	2020	Via Laghetto	7794	7895	9259	9879	1.30% *	17.28%	6.7%
24	2020	Via Toce	3872	4098	5206	6108	5.84% *	27.04% *	17.3% *
25	2020	Piazzale Fabio Chiesa	2951	2838	3231	4083	−3.83%	13.85%	26.4% *
26	2020	Via Val Lagarina	2414	2296	2603	3292	−4.89%	13.37%	26.5% *
27	2020	Via Pontano	2736	2712	3434	4346	−0.88% *	26.62% *	26.6% *
28	2020	Piazza Tirana	2830	2799	3227	3874	−1.10% *	15.29%	20.0% *
29	2020	Piazzetta Capuana	2414	2296	2603	3292	−4.89%	13.37%	26.5% *
30	2020	Piazzale Ferrara	2518	2386	2962	3735	−5.24%	24.14% *	26.1% *
31	2020	Piazzale Loreto	2736	2712	3434	4346	−0.88% *	26.62% *	26.6% *
32	2020	Via Quarti	2250	2113	2218	2658	−6.09%	4.97%	19.8% *
33	2020	Via Monte Ceneri	2641	2444	2858	3643	−7.46%	16.94%	27.5% *
34	2020	Via Pacinotti	2641	2444	2858	3643	−7.46%	16.94%	27.5% *
35	2021	Piazzale Bacone	4278	4226	5486	6303	−1.22%	29.82% *	14.9%
36	2021	Piazzetta Santi Patroni d’Italia	3107	3053	3641	4341	−1.74%	19.26%	19.2% *
37	2021	Piazza Torri Bianche	2951	2838	3231	4083	−3.83%	13.85%	26.4% *
38	2021	Via De Nora	2827	2870	3264	3956	1.52% *	13.73%	21.2% *
MILAN			3745	3702	4476	5150	−1.15%	20.91%	15.1%

* Values highlighted in grey refer to a market value variation higher than the average one at the municipal level in the considered period.

). The choice to include in the time horizon the period of 2015–2017, which is not affected by the considered interventions’ implementation, rests on the willingness to reflect on tactical urbanism’s possible impacts by relating them to a broader reference zone’s real estate dynamic. Also, in this case, the reference for the influence zones’ definition and data is identified in the Immobiliare.it database.

This preliminary analysis of the Milan context shows that, as for the other experiences selected in the national territory, it is impossible to infer a univocal effect of tactical urbanism experiences on the real estate market trends. However, by considering the residential assets’ market value variation between 2020 and 2022, it is possible to observe that, in more than 70% of the case studies’ influence areas, the market value variation is higher than the average one referring to the whole municipal territory. This result suggests the existence of a limited positive economic impact of tactical urbanism interventions, but it must also be taken with caution, because it represents only a part of the broader projects portfolio implemented in the Milan municipality to trigger urban regeneration [77]. In this sense, it can be worth narrowing the analysis’s observation scale by focusing on a limited number of case studies and by looking at them in a smaller territorial context. Such a narrowing allows, on the one hand, to adopt a more detailed and suitable perspective for these small-scale and minimal interventions. On the other hand, it enables the recognition of related urban regeneration projects to consider them in assessing tactical urbanism’s impacts through the real estate market lens.

4.3. Narrowing the Observation Scale: the Case of NoLo

The willingness to narrow the investigation scale has led to detailing the market value trends analysis to one of the Milan real estate market’s micro-zones, as defined by Immobiliare.it: the Pasteur–Rovereto zone in the northeastern part of Milan. This zone includes four tactical urbanism interventions promoted by the Milan municipality within the Piazze Aperte program [75]:

• Via Spoleto/Via Venini. This pivotal intervention for tactical urbanism in Milan, implemented in 2019, works on transforming a crossroads into a square, thus creating a public space in close relationship with the school facing it and determining the existing roads’ and traffic system’s redesign;
• Via Rovereto/via Giacosa. This tactical urbanism experiment, dating back to 2019, focuses on creating a green buffer area between the neighborhood and Trotter Park, which is the main green space in the area;
• Via Pontano. This intervention, implemented in 2020, is conceived in a bigger regeneration process of the railway front and tunnels in the area, the Tunnel Boulevard Plan, based on social design and street art actions. In greater detail, the tactical urbanism intervention focuses on a crossroads transformation to connect the main public spaces in the area from a soft mobility perspective;
• Piazzale Loreto. This 2020 tactical urbanism experience releases a residual space of the road system from cars and returns it to the local community by endowing it with urban furniture.

In recent years, as mentioned when describing the Via Pontano intervention, the Rovereto–Pasteur area has been affected by several bottom-up urban regeneration initiatives triggered by a neighborhood rebranding operation around the name NoLo (which stands for North of Loreto). This regeneration process has dramatically changed this area’s image and role within Milan’s social and cultural life context.

The focus on tactical urbanism case studies in this area thus makes it possible to reflect on the impact of these interventions according to their different relationships with a broader urban regeneration process and with complementary specific actions.

Coming to the analysis, the comparison between the residential market value trends in the tactical urbanism experience’s influence area and its broader territorial context can be further detailed than the previous analyses in the Italian context and the whole Milan municipality. In this sense, each intervention’s influence zone can be identified in the area falling within an 800 m radius from the tactical urbanism experience’s localization; since this distance, as mentioned in the Piazze Aperte program, corresponds to 15 min walking distance [78].

The reference data are still retrieved from Immobiliare.it. In greater detail, the average market value trends for the 800 m radius influence areas are built by considering the offer market values for residential assets (Figure 7) in the area in reference to three different times: January 2017, January 2020, and October 2022 (

Table 3. Average market value calculation for residential assets in each intervention’s 800 m radius influence area in reference to 2017, 2020, and 2022 (authors’ elaboration on Immobiliare.it data).

Tactical Urbanism Intervention: Via Spoleto/Via Venini
2017			2020			2022
ID	Asset’s Address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s Address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s Address	Value [€/sqm]
1	Via Bolzano 22	2800.00 €	6	Via S. Alessandro Sauli 18	4214.28 €	11	Via Nicola d’Apulia 13	4438.46 €
2	Via Nicola d’Apulia 13	2882.35 €	7	Via Luigi Varanini 29	3980.00 €	12	Via Popoli Uniti	4700.00 €
3	Via Pietro Crespi 12	2360.00 €	8	Viale Monza 79	4428.57 €	13	Via Varanini 26	4838.24 €
4	Via Termopili 27	2750.00 €	9	Martiri Oscuri 8	3100.00 €	14	Via Spoleto 2	3813.01 €
5	Via Padova 31	2653.33 €	10	Via Luigi Varanini 1	4285.71 €	15	Via Ferrante Aporti 54	4600.00 €
Average market value in the influence area (Spoleto)		2689.14 €	Average market value in the influence area (Spoleto)		4001.71 €	Average market value in the influence area (Spoleto)		4477.94 €
Tactical urbanism intervention: Via Rovereto/Via Giacosa
2017			2020			2022
ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]
16	Via Nicola d’Apulia 13	2882.35 €	21	Via Marco Aurelio 32	4960.00 €	26	Via Rovereto 3	4636.36 €
17	Via Bolzano 22	2800.00 €	22	Via dei Transiti 26	5000.00 €	27	Via Marco Aurelio 44	5208.33 €
18	Via Oldrado da Tresseno 1	3660.38 €	23	Via Rovereto 6	3691.30 €	28	Via Popoli Uniti 23	4985.71 €
19	Via Pietro Crespi 12	2360.00 €	24	Via Rovereto 5	4469.38 €	29	Via Felicita Morandi 11	4384.62 €
20	Via Padova 30	2653.33 €	25	Via Pietro Crespi 10	2761.00 €	30	Via Giuseppe Giacosa 55	5044.78 €
Average market value in the influence area (Rovereto)		2871.21 €	Average market value in the influence area (Rovereto)		4176.34 €	Average market value in the influence area (Rovereto)		4851.96 €
Tactical urbanism intervention: Via Pontano
2017			2020			2022
ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]
31	Via Bolzano 23	2225.81 €	36	Via Bassano del Grappa 17	3930.23 €	41	Viale Monza 92	3777.78 €
32	Via Padova 90	2461.54 €	37	Viale Monza 90	2250.00 €	42	Viale Padova 100	3750.00 €
33	Via Padova 55	4326.92 €	38	Viale Monza 101	3055.55 €	43	Via Carlo Esterle 25	4000.00 €
34	Via Termopili 27	2750.00 €	39	Via Bassano del Grappa 1	3333.33 €	44	Via Bolzano 21	4071.43 €
35	Via Pietro Crespi 13	3380.00 €	40	Viale Monza 81	5142.00 €	45	Via Arquà 14	4166.67 €
Average market value in the influence area (Pontano)		3028.85 €	Average market value in the influence area (Pontano)		3542.22 €	Average market value in the influence area (Pontano)		4302.06 €
Tactical urbanism intervention: Piazzale Loreto
2017			2020			2022
ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]	ID	Asset’s address	Value [€/sqm]
46	Piazzale Loreto	3940.59 €	51	Via Pietro Marocco 12	3620.68 €	56	Piazzale Loreto	5284.55 €
47	Via Ricordi	3613.45 €	52	Viale Monza 23	4090.90 €	57	Via Natale Battaglia	5686.27 €
48	Via Soperga 36	4133.33 €	53	Viale Brianza 12	4318.18 €	58	Viale Brianza 9, Centrale	4491.02 €
49	Via Oldrado da Tresseno 1	3660.38 €	54	Via Natale Battaglia 29	4102.50 €	59	Viale Privata Pomezia	5288.24 €
50	Via Padova 31	2653.33 €	55	Viale Monza 18	4781.91 €	60	Via Pietro Marocco 7	6390.00 €
Average market value in the influence area (Loreto)		3600.22 €	Average market value in the influence area (Loreto)		4176.34 €	Average market value in the influence area (Loreto)		4851.96 €

). Instead, the trends for the broader territorial context for comparison are built by considering the average market values for residential assets in the micro-zone Pasteur–Rovereto.

The market value trends comparison (

Table 4. Comparison of residential assets’ average market value trends in the tactical urbanism intervention’s influence area and in the Pasteur–Rovereto zone between 2017 and 2022 (authors’ elaboration on Immobiliare.it data).

ID	Year	Tactical Urbanism Intervention	Average Residential Market Value (€/sqm)			Average Residential Market Value Variation (%)
			2017	2020	2022	17–20	20–22	17–22
4	2019	Via Spoleto/Via Venini	2689	4002	4478	48.81% *	11.90%	66.52% *
16	2019	Via Rovereto/via Giacosa	2871	4176	4852	45.46% *	16.18%	68.99% *
27	2020	Via Pontano	3029	3542	4302	16.95%	21.45%	42.04%
31	2020	Piazzale Loreto	3600	4183	5428	16.18%	29.77% *	50.77%
PASTEUR—ROVERETO			2712	3434	4346	26.62%	26.56%	60.25%

* Values highlighted in grey refer to a market value variation higher than the average one at the municipal level in the considered period.

) clearly shows how the Pasteur–Rovereto area has been affected by a dramatic increase in market values in recent years. Concerning the economic impacts of tactical urbanism interventions, even this smaller-scale observation reveals the impossibility of outlining a homogeneous pattern.

Indeed, in Piazzale Loreto’s, Via Pontano’s, and Via Rovereto/Via Giacosa’s influence areas, the market value variation follows the same increasing trend observed for the whole Pasteur–Rovereto microzone (Figure 8). However, in the Via Pontano intervention’s influence area, which is affected by a broader regeneration plan, the tactical urbanism experience’s economic impact does not emerge. Instead, in Piazzale Loreto and Via Rovereto, the comparison returns a possible positive impact of the analyzed interventions in the influence area’s residential market values’ growth. Finally, a different pattern can be observed in Via Spoleto/Via Venini’s influence area (Figure 9). Here, looking at the values’ variation between 2017 and 2022, the tactical urbanism intervention seems to have a positive economic impact in the short run and then, in the following years, it is absorbed by the overall market values’ increase related to the whole area’s regeneration.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

The analysis carried out aimed to assess the economic impacts related to tactical urban planning interventions by looking at them through the lens of the residential real estate market. The focus on the various case studies selected within the national context, and, in more detail, in the municipality of Milan, returns a fairly diversified picture concerning the assessment of the possible economic impacts of similar experiences. In fact, in the cases of Sassari and Reggio Emilia, the tactical urban planning interventions implemented seem to play a role in triggering a positive trend in market values in the respective areas of influence. In contrast, real estate dynamics in the areas subject to tactical urbanism experiences in Bari and Bologna do not seem to be affected by the presence of such interventions. Even in Milan, where the multiple experiences of tactical urbanism are part of a broader strategic design of regeneration, traceable to the application domain of “temporariness as policy,” the evaluation conducted returns diversified results: in the cases of Piazzale Loreto, Via Rovereto, and Via Spoleto/Via Venini, it is possible to identify an (albeit limited) influence of such interventions on the growth of real estate values in the respective areas of influence; in other cases, such as that of Via Pontano, instead, real estate dynamics seem indifferent to the presence of the tactical experience.

The synthesis of the analyses of the various case studies, with their differences in terms of spatial context and reference real estate market, as well as the modalities and outcomes of the tactical urban planning experience, therefore, does not allow for an unambiguous answer to the research question about the economic impacts of such interventions. It is also complicated, on the one hand, by the fact that most interventions, especially those in Milan, are recent, and, therefore, there is no medium- to long-term time horizon, which is more appropriate to the analysis and evaluation of interventions at the urban scale. On the other hand, most of the experiences of tactical urbanism have been carried out on the back of, or, in conjunction with, the COVID-19 pandemic, which, having profoundly altered the dynamics of the real estate market at the national level, constitutes an element of further complication with respect to the reading of such experiences in terms of economic impacts.

What emerges from the analysis in its current stage is that the experiences of tactical urbanism, partly because of their temporary nature and their tendency toward minimal intervention, fail to trigger regeneration processes or to produce significant economic impacts on the territory. Evidence, in this sense, can be retrieved by comparing the market value trends in the influence areas of the Via Spoleto/Venini and Via Rovereto/via Giacosa interventions. Indeed, despite the two interventions’ proximity, it is not possible to observe a synergistic effect on property prices, thus returning the tactical urbanism interventions’ presence as a “weak” influence factor in determining property prices. Instead, as seems to have happened and is happening in Milan in recent years, such experiences can play a role in accelerating or consolidating urban regeneration processes already underway, and, in this sense, contributing to the generation of economic impact on the territory. This analysis, therefore, prompts one to look at such interventions through the social impacts they can produce on local areas and their communities, rather than in terms of economic impacts.

Based on this awareness, a future development of this research could be the integration of the proposed methodological approach with the Hedonic Price Method (HPM). This implementation could allow for quantifying the economic impact of tactical urbanism interventions on properties’ values. Moreover, it would be interesting to broaden the scope of the investigation to other market sectors, such as offices and commercial services, as well as enlarge the analysis of the evaluation of the social and environmental impacts of such interventions. Actually, tactical urbanism projects also have the potential to support economic revitalization by bringing more people in front of local businesses. The new use of space to promote economic activities may serve as an opportunity to recover and adapt to the new economic reality after the pandemic period. In fact, it is interesting to underline how the number of restaurants in the neighborhood taken as the reference for the last level of analysis increased by about 200%. This evidence cannot only be associated with the presence of tactical urbanism interventions, but, of course, there is a strong correlation with the overall attractiveness of the area and its local identity. Given the high number of variables that deserve to be analyzed to understand the impact of these projects under an economic perspective, the next phase of the research is grounded in the application of a multidimensional methodology, as shown in the initial framework. The limitations that emerged from this first exploratory part reinforce the need to look at these interventions with a lens not only related to the real estate market.

Tactical urbanism is a method of rapid, low-cost project implementation using a set of techniques designed to enhance the built environment with the intent of bringing about long-term positive outcomes for the community. In this sense, it will be necessary to verify whether there will be the desired connection between the short time of temporary use projects and the reversibility of tactical interventions with the long time of long-term territorial regeneration projects.

At the methodological level, it is evident that an approach based only on the analysis of case studies with reference to residential real estate market values presents limits in capturing the added value in economic and social terms produced by such interventions.

Innovative approaches based on multidimensional values, such as the Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) or Impact Analysis, could be tested in order to measure the social and environmental values produced compared to the investment costs.