Polycentric Patterns and Housing Affordability: Does a Relationship Exist?

Polycentric structures are one of the possible kinds of territorial organization for human settlements. They have recently become important because they have been recommended by a number of UE documents as the most suitable structure for attaining equilibrium in economic, social, and territorial development. This paper seeks to verify the possible advantages of the polycentric model empirically for the case of a typical urban problem such as housing affordability. The empirical analysis is carried out on Italian administrative regions, through the construction of a regional index of polycentrism and an analysis of the level and territorial variability of house prices.