Rurality, urbanity and wealth in the Italian "Comuni"

The paper presents the results of research on the rural/urban characterization of the Italian municipalities and the linkages between rurality and urbanity, on the one hand, and wealth, on the other. Two major results emerge from the analysis. The first is that no evidence is to be found of a significant relation linking rural areas to poverty and urban areas to higher incomes. The second is that, while rural and urban areas are distributed, albeit unevenly, throughout the whole country, the levels of income produced and consumption per capita differ significantly in the various regions. While in the North-Central part of the country many municipal areas classified as “extremely rural” are among the “richest” and few of the “extremely urban” are among the “poorest”, in Southern Italy both “extremely urban” and “extremely rural” municipal areas are mostly associated with low levels of per capita income and consumption. Hence, when regions are considered individually the correlation between rurality/urbanity and wealth prove even weaker when analysis is applied to the country as a whole.