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Luca: Happy Saturday everyone, and welcome back to the Magic Towns Italy podcast with Luca, and most importantly, Anna.
Anna: Yes, ciao a tutti. Hi everyone. Today we're diving into some fascinating new findings from a demographic study, Magic Towns Italy conducted using data from 2019 to 2025.
We'll talk about which towns are growing or shrinking, how well they keep young people, and how much pressure they are under from aging populations. So if you're a retiree or an expat thinking of relocating here, this is definitely for you.
Luca: Exactly. So we analyzed detailed population data for over 7,500 Italian towns.
And, uh, before you tune onto another [00:01:00] podcast, because you're not a huge data fan, what we're gonna be sharing with you are the implications of the study. Consider this for instance, that the idyllic village that you're looking at could within 10 years turn into a place that doesn't have a pharmacy, doesn't have a doctor, or doesn't have a supermarket.
This happens in Italy, so it's worth looking out for this. Demographics make a huge difference as to whether a town thrives or fades. So if you're looking for a place to live in Italy for the long run, you will want to look at the signs.
Anna: Yeah, I mean, nobody wants to move into a beautiful town, only to find out 10 years later that it's become a ghost village. Let's start with the big picture. What did the study look at?
Luca: We focused on three simple but very important questions. Number one, is the town growing or shrinking? Two, are young adults staying or leaving? And three, how quickly is [00:02:00] the population getting older.
Anna: and what are the key insights?
Luca: Let's start with a sad fact, which is the most Italian towns are shrinking. In fact, across the towns we looked at the general trend is for a loss of, uh, about half a percentage point of population per year.
And only about a quarter of Italian towns are actually growing in population. That's one in four. And if you look at it the other way around, it means that three out of four Italian towns are shrinking. The towns that are growing at disproportionately medium sized towns, imagine towns around 10 to 20,000 inhabitants, which are service centers or commuter towns rather than, uh, huge cities or tiny villages.
Anna: Oh, so three quarters are getting smaller. That is huge. So the typical little village we all imagine, chances are it's quietly empty out. And the ones that are growing tend to be market towns or places within reach of cities, not the remote hilltop [00:03:00] hamlets.
Luca: Exactly. Now talking about youth retention, the ability to retain young people, we found that about 50% of towns are able to retain or attract young adults.
Unfortunately, the other half are losing the 20 somethings and the 30 somethings. And not surprisingly, larger towns and cities have an edge here, meaning that, uh, they're more likely to attract young people for university or jobs.
Anna: It makes sense. Young adults often move to cities like Milan or Bologna for work or study, but yeah, it's interesting that only half hang on to their youth.
If a place lose its young people, it's basically losing its future, isn't it?
Luca: Yeah. Sad but true. And the last part getting older. Aging. This is just a countrywide phenomenon. We saw that pretty much every town has an aging population getting older on average. Even those that attract some young [00:04:00] people.
And of course, and we've discussed this in several podcasts, the low birth rates across Italy mean that the overall population is aging.
Anna: But I know there was some silver linings in your study too.
Luca: Big takeaway if you ignore everything else, town size matters. Medium-sized towns are the quiet winners in this. They had a good balance. Our preparation, stability, youth attraction, they outperformed the tiny village.
Anna: I love that insight.
It means those mid-size community often hit a sweet spot, big enough to have services and live, but. Not so big that they lose their charm. So that's exactly the kind of place many of our listeners dream about. A town with the hospitals, schools, cafes, local markets, but with all the crazy traffic or costs of a major city.
Luca: Yeah, that's what we see in our data. And conversely, the smallest villages, uh, the kind quaint postcard ones, uh, a lot of those 7% town that we always talk about, are the ones that [00:05:00] are struggling the most, they tend to have the steepest decline in population.
They tend to have, uh, the oldest population on average, and they are losing young people. So they have a pretty bleak future, if I may say so.
Anna: Yeah, it's not as simple as the north is fine and the south is declining, or, um, old small villages are dying. In fact, your analysis shows that the familiar stereotypes don't tell the full story.
Sometimes a town just a few kilometers away from another, can have a completely different trend. So we really have to dig into the local details.
Luca: Exactly.
Anna: So based on the study, which parts of Italy have more of these resilient, demographically healthy towns?
Luca: Geography does matter in spite of what we just said. Now, north versus south, it is a bit north versus south. There's a clear cluster of resilient towns with a bright future in northern central regions, Emilia Romagna, Trentino, Lombardy, Veneto, [00:06:00] uh, Tuscany. These fit within our Growth plus Youth Inflow pattern.
Anna: That's encouraging for the north and the center. And what about the more fragile side of the equation?
Luca: Unsurprisingly, the data shows that several southern and island regions like Calabria, Sardinia, Molise, Puglia, and Campania have an especially large concentration of towns that are losing population and losing young people.
Anna: That matches what we hear about people from the south moving north or abroad. But I remember you saying that we shouldn't just write off entire regions.
Luca: That's exactly right. There are towns in the south that are doing fine. I posted a chart about Calabria that shows that there's a coastal area that does especially well with growing and attracting people while the rest of the region is basically bleeding the same, um, young people and, uh, getting older. You can't just look at the region. You [00:07:00] have to look at the individual town.
Anna: No region gets a free pass, nor region is completely hopeless either. Why don't we talk about some specific town examples.
Luca: Just mention a few success stories and frankly data that surprised us because they're not many cases famous towns. One example is Monfalcone.
Monfalcone is in the very northeastern part of Italy in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Which really stands out for retaining young people, getting young people, and even had positive population growth. And if you know the area there's a fair bit of industry
Anna: Is like a big ship building industry. And it's also not far from cities like Trieste, Udine, so I mean that connectivity helps. Um, another good example you found was Salsomaggiore Terme in Emilia Romagn a, right?
Luca: This is an interesting case because I actually looked at Salsomaggiore when I decided to come back to Italy.
It was on my short [00:08:00] list. It's a spa town, a bit like Recoaro of which we spoke about last week, and it was in decline for many, many years. Even though you remember Anna another used to do Miss Italia from, uh, from, uh, Salsomaggiore. I don't know if they still do. So anyway. It had the declining population plummeting property prices, uh, and recently has turned around with the both working age people and population growth.
It has a good pull for people in their twenties and forties and, for people that are looking for bargains, sometimes a town that is down on its luck can rebound, especially when the fundamentals in that case, architecture, history, proximity to big cities warrant that.
Anna: I imagine those who bought property there when prices were low must be pleased to see a revival.
Luca: The prices are still pretty low, but I won't go as, uh, far out as to advise people to buy there yet. We have to see how things develop anyway. And, [00:09:00] uh, talking about another example, Anzio Anzio is on the coast near Rome.
And among the larger towns that we looked at, this is one of the most impressive because it has both a strong influx of students and young people. Of course it is within reach of Roma, you probably know the area better than I do. With an annual population growth of around, uh, 2.5%, which is huge by standards.
The common theme for me is that resilience often comes from being well connected with broader economic area and while still offering the kind of high quality of life that people look for in Italian smaller towns.
Now at the same time, uh, just as we have surprises on the upside, we saw a lot of surprises on the downside towns that stood out for doing especially badly Camerino, Marche, which is actually really sad because Camerino has a university not as big one by all standards about, uh, I was surprised to find it on this list of [00:10:00] towns on the decline. Several towns in Calabria, like Cutro, Atri, Vietri in Campania, these are all in the south. These are a pretty bad combo of steep population decline. Uh, poor ability to retain young people and a rising old days pressure. So, people are getting older and the places are emptying out.
Anna: And what about larger towns or small cities? Were any of them struggling in particular?
Luca: Yeah, the two that kind of stick out are Trapani in Sicily and Crotone and Calabria.
Anna: Yeah, that's sad to hear because places like Crotone or Trapani have so much history and character.
I mean, it's not that they lack charm or beauty, but yeah, the opportunities there are limited,
Luca: That's right.
Anna: So based on this data, how do you think our listeners can evaluate a town's prospects themselves?
Luca: So we've recommended, if you go to Magic Towns, you read the article we [00:11:00] published yesterday.
We recommend three quick checks that you can do by yourself on the Town Explorer, number one, are the young adults staying, and if people in their twenties and thirties are all leaving, that means that the town is losing its lifeblood. So a good sign is if the town attracts younger residents or at least manages to keep. The second is, uh, is the population stable or shrinking? If the population declines, little by little and over time, as is the case for many thriving cities in the north then that's manageable. What you don't want is a steep, ongoing population drop because that will lead to fewer services, closed shops, and a lot of empty houses.
So bad stay away. Three is aging under control. Population will age in Italy. You'll find very, very few places where the average age is dropping, so that's not your goal. What you want [00:12:00] to avoid is towns where the town is aging rapidly and the population, the working age population is shrinking at the same time for the same reason, because essential services will start to struggle and, uh, you are going to be on the receiving end of, uh, a less vibrant community.
Anna: Yeah, I mean, you can often sense, uh, towns age balance by observing are there schools and are they full of kids? Do you see, I don't know, teenagers and young families around, or is it mostly grandmas on the bench?
Luca: How do you go about doing this kind of analysis so you can, of course, find your own population data online, on the Italian statistics portal or Wikipedia. And of course, I'm always gonna say to save time and do a good job, use our own Town Explorer tool. We added two new filters last week that allow you to search for a town's demographic [00:13:00] trajectory. Read Anna's post today on Magic Towns and get informed because frankly, the idea of playing around the numbers to find a place to live may not be for everyone. But, uh, when you're making a long-term life decision, you know, spending five minutes with useful filters may save you from making some terrible, terrible decisions.
You can find thriving communities everywhere in Italy. Just if you know what to look for and, uh, match it to your own desires and, uh, meet with the reality of life.
We hope this was useful to you. Next week will be back with a lighter theme and, uh, we hope that you have a great weekend.
Anna: Thank you so much, guys. And feel free to reach out to us if you
Luca: need to.
Yes, reach out to us. Uh, if you have any ideas for the podcast, actually we would love to hear them. So keep in touch and follow us on Instagram, [00:14:00] Facebook, Spotify, and on our website. Ciao.