Collective benefits of an urban transformation: Restoring the Navigli in Milan

Abstract The aim of this paper is to assess the collective benefits for the metropolitan city of Milan arising from the project to restore the Navigli, the ancient urban canals flowing underground for a large part. In this paper two of the most important impacts of this urban transformation, mostly of intangible nature, are considered. On the one hand, the improvement of urban and environmental quality has been estimated through the hedonic price methodology, considering expected price changes both in the residential as well as in the commercial real estate markets; on the other hand, a multiplier effect on infrastructure investment, generating an increase in final income, has been calculated using Input–Output Tables. Empirical results confirm the collective net advantage of the urban transformation.