Sardinian cities increasingly "desertified" from a commercial point of view, both in historic centers and in neighborhoods.

This is what emerges from the analysis of the Confcommercio Studies Office on business demography in Italian urban centres, carried out in collaboration with the Guglielmo Tagliacarne Chambers of Commerce Study Centre.   The data in the report concern 120 medium-large Italian municipalities, of which 110 provincial capitals and 10 non-capital municipalities. The island reflects a trend that concerns the whole country: in Italy from 2012 to today, in fact, around one hundred thousand retail businesses have closed, thanks to the increasingly widespread diffusion of large-scale distribution giants, but also the double crisis, energy and pandemic, which has brought many businesses to their knees.  

In Sardinia alone, urban centers have lost 637 shops in a decade (2012-2022), between the center and the suburbs. In detail, Sassari is the city in which , in absolute terms, the most activities have lowered the shutters: 262, followed by Oristano (65) and Cagliari (59) . In Nuoro the balance is negative by 55 units, in Olbia by 52. And again: 46 retail businesses have closed in Iglesias, 43 in Carbonia and 42 in Tempio Pausania.

«Commercial desertification does not only affect businesses, but society as a whole because it means less services, livability and security . Urban redevelopment needs to be accelerated with a wider and more selective use of the European funds of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the involvement of the social partners», commented the president of Confcommercio Carlo Sangalli.

(Unioneonline/F)