Real estate market latent variables and the multiculturalism in Turin

The presence of foreign population is a complex phenomenon, which changes and evolves over time and space in urban contexts. It deserves to be analysed in relation to many socio-economic factors and trends, able to support the interpretation of its spatial clustering across the urban areas. Analyses on real estate markets are able to bring out social phenomena that underlie not only the dynamics of values but also the choices of investors and the urban planning and governance, as in the case of welfare and environmental sustainability. Social and housing vulnerability and urban vibrancy represent latent variables that can be spatially analysed to investigate whether new and different relationships are able to explain the paradigm of multiculturalism. The aim of this study is to understand if there are connections between spatial clusters of foreign population and other different urban polarizations by analysing a set of socio-economic indicators and indexes. The results of the spatial autocorrelation analyses highlighted that a relationship between the density of foreign population, real estate values and the most and the least vulnerable and vibrant urban areas exists. Spatial clusters of the highest and lowest property prices often reflect social inequalities and processes of urban polarisation. Therefore, focusing on the foreign population dynamics jointly with the real estate market, urban vulnerability and vibrancy trends would allow to identify the urban areas where inter-sectoral actions of territorial welfare could be addressed, in order to overcome the problems related to physical-building decay, as well as other economic and social vulnerability factors.