VERBI VEnice Research BIbliography

Economic incentives and regulatory relief are sometimes advocated as useful approaches for encouraging regeneration of derelict urban sites. Would these approaches be effective when the underutilized urban sites are historical buildings or areas that are also prized for their architectural value? This is, of course, a key policy and research question in Venice, and one that has important implications for sustainability.
We use conjoint choice experiments to explore the relative importance of economic incentives, regulatory relief, land use and property regime offerings at underutilized historical sites in Venice. We survey developers and real estate investors at two international trade fairs, asked them to choose which project they prefer out of two projects at underutilized historical sites in Venice. This question is followed by another where we ask whether they would prefer the investment project in Venice they have just selected, or another project at another locale. We model the responses to these questions using logit models.
We find that our respondents care about the allowed land use and property regime, but that –surprisingly– they are not sensitive to conservation restrictions and improved transportation links. Of the three Venice locales we query them about, the most appealing is S. Marta, which is also the most easily accessible.
In addition to the conjoint choice questions, we query our respondents extensively about the factors that matter the most in their decisions to undertake development projects, and query them about their interest in Venice as a possible location for a project. We find that over two-thirds of our interviewees would be willing to consider Venice as a possible investment venue.