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QUALITY OF LIFE

The best (and worst) places to live in Italy in 2023

A new quality of life study has ranked Italian cities from best to worst, with the gap between north and south as wide as ever.

Published: 20 November 2023 15:39 CET
Updated: 21 November 2023 10:45 CET
The northern city of Bolzano offers Italy's best quality of life, according to a study.
The northern city of Bolzano offers Italy's residents the best quality of life, according to a new study. Photo by JOE KLAMAR / AFP.

This year, the inhabitants of the northeastern Italian city of Bolzano can say they live in the best province in Italy for quality of life – at least according to the latest survey compiled by ItaliaOggi and Rome’s La Sapienza University.

Now in its 25th year, this is among the most respected of several annual quality of life surveys conducted in Italy.

READ ALSO: Why are Trento and Bolzano rated the best places to live in Italy?

Bolzano took the top spot from last year’s winner Trento, which now ranks fourth.

The northern economic powerhouse of Milan was in second place, with top five completed by the cities of Bologna and Florence.

Rome was in 33rd place, this year beaten by Turin in 31st.

Venice ranked 25th, while southern capital Naples was ninth from bottom in 99th place.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Which is the best place to live in Italy?

The rankings are based on factors including employment opportunities, standards in health and education, crime levels, income, leisure facilities, social security and environment.

Venice is the Italian city with the 25th best quality of life, according to a new study. Photo by MARCO SABADIN / AFP.

Such studies usually show a clear north-south divide, and this one is no exception: the 63 provincial capitals where the quality of life was rated ‘good’ or ‘acceptable’ were predominantly in the central and eastern Alps, the Po Valley and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, ItaliaOggi noted.

Towns and cities in the south of Italy and its two major islands, by contrast, overwhelmingly have a ‘poor’ or ‘insufficient’ quality of life.

“The 2023 survey confirms a trend: the fracture between the centre-north, more performing and resilient, and southern and island Italy, characterised by persistent vulnerability,” the publication concludes.

READ ALSO: ‘If you want quality of life, choose Italy’s sunny south over the efficient north’

The findings also show that major cities in the centre-north have seen a strong post-pandemic recovery in the past year; as demonstrated by Rome’s jump from 53rd to 33rd place, and Turin’s from 54th to 31st.

While the study does not rank smaller towns and rural areas, it is seen as representative partly as most public services, including local government offices and larger hospitals and healthcare facilities, are generally located in the provincial capital.

Here’s the survey’s complete ranking of all 107 provincial capitals in Italy, from best to worst according to its criteria:

1. Bolzano

2. Milan

3. Bologna

4. Trento

5. Florence

6. Padua

7. Parma

8. Monza and Brianza

9. Aosta

10. Pordenone

11. Siena

12. Brescia

13. Modena

14. Reggio Emilia

15. Forlì-Cesena

16. Verona

17. Vicenza

18. Treviso

19. Udine

20. Mantua

21. Rimini

22. Belluno

23. Bergamo

24. Ravenna

25. Venice

26. Cuneo

27. Lecco

28. Ancona

29. Prato

30. Trieste

31. Turin

32. Sondrio

33. Rome

34. Varese

35. Como

36. Cremona

37. Pesaro and Urbino

38. Verbano-Cusio-Ossola

39. Lodi

40. Ascoli Piceno

41. Macerata

42. Gorizia

43. Savona

44. Biella

45. Pisa

46. Piacenza

47. Novara

48. Ferrara

49. Arezzo

50. Fermo

51. Lucca

52. Perugia

53. Livorno

54. Pistoia

55. Pavia

56. Grosseto

57. Genoa

58. Terni

59. Vercelli

60. Asti

61. Teramo

62. Massa-Carrara

63. La Spezia

64. Rovigo

65. Isernia

66. Pescara

67. L’Aquila

68. Alessandria

69. Imperia

70. Viterbo

71. Potenza

72. Matera

73. Cagliari

74. Chieti

75. Frosinone

76. Benevento

77. Sassari

78. Nuoro

79. Campobasso

80. Rieti

81. Latina

82. Bari

83. Avellino

84. Lecce

85. Barletta-Andria-Trani

86. Salerno

87. Catanzaro

88. Ragusa

89. South Sardinia

90. Brindisi

91. Oristano

92. Vibo Valentia

93. Trapani

94. Caserta

95. Reggio Calabria

96. Foggia

97. Cosenza

98. Palermo

99. Naples

100. Enna

101. Taranto

102. Syracuse

103. Catania

104. Agrigento

105. Messina

106. Caltanissetta

107. Crotone

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LIVING IN ITALY

How to find a storage space for your belongings in Italy

If you need to temporarily store some of your belongings because you’re moving home, refurbishing, or running out of space at your property, there are a number of storage options available in Italy.

Published: 29 August 2024 13:54 CEST
How to find a storage space for your belongings in Italy

Generally speaking, Italian homes aren’t the most spacious.

According to data from real estate portal Immobiliare.it, the average Italian home has 81 square metres of floor space.

For context, that’s 56 square metres less than in Denmark, which comes first in Europe for average floor space with 137 sqm. The figure is also significantly lower than in France (112 sqm), Germany (109) and Spain (97).

All of that is to say that, while living in Italy, you may not have a lot of space to store all of your personal belongings at home.

Granted, many houses and apartment blocks come with storage rooms – these may be located underground (known as cantine or scantinati in Italian) or in the attic (soffitta) – which you can use to pile up all the belongings you’re not using at a particular moment in time.

But if you’re permanently leaving your home and need a place for some, if not all, of your kitchen appliances, furniture and other personal belongings, you may no longer have access to a storage room. And if you don’t have another place to ship your stuff to, this can be pretty challenging. 

Luckily, there are plenty of storage options available in Italy.

Rent a storage room from a private owner

If you visit Idealista, Immobiliare.it or any other of Italy’s main property websites, you’ll find listings from private owners looking to rent out a storage room. 

Generally speaking, you’ll need to head to the affitto (‘rent’) section of the website, select the magazzino or deposito (‘storage room’) option from a drop-down menu, and then type in the relevant area, as shown by the screengrab below.

A screengrab of the homepage of Italy's Immobiliare.it website

A screengrab of the homepage of Italy’s Immobiliare.it website. Source: Immobiliare

Depending on size and location of the storage room, you can expect to pay anything from €50 to €300-400 a month. 

When renting from a private owner, you’ll need to sign a rental contract for storage purposes (contratto di locazione di immobile ad uso cantina, soffitta, magazzino). 

This will in most cases require you to pay a security deposit, but will offer you legal protection and security under Italian law. 

The owner will be responsible for registering the contract with Italy’s tax office (Agenzia delle Entrate).

Remember: it’s strongly advisable to ask the owner all of the pertinent questions regarding security, mould, insect infestations and any other condition that could damage your belongings before agreeing to renting the space.  

Rent a storage space from a company

Companies specialising in storage space are often called ditte di magazzinaggio or deposito,  or, in recent years, ditte di self-storage, using the English name.

The benefits of using a professional company over renting from a private owner is that they offer a wide range of storage sizes tailored to your needs, and they’re likely to have facilities which are properly protected from the elements and break-ins.

READ ALSO: What are the rules on moving household goods to Italy?

Casaforte and Easybox are the leaders of the self-storage market in Italy but are not available in smaller cities and towns around the peninsula.

Luckily, in recent years, a growing number of companies specialised in self-storage have started operating in smaller urban centres.

This means that a simple Google search with ditta di self storage paired with the name of your town (or the relevant postal code) will in most cases produce several useful results. 

When looking for the best option, don’t forget to shop around for good prices and offers, and read as many customer reviews as possible.

Once again, storage prices can vary greatly depending on the area of the country, as well as the size of your storage room.

Generally speaking, prices start at €1-1.5 per day for the smaller sizes (around 5 sqm) but can climb to €5 or more per day for large spaces (15-20 sqm).

Use a moving company to store your belongings

If you only need to store your things while you’re between houses, you can hire a moving company (ditta or società di traslochi) which will provide door-to-door delivery service and keep your things secure between move-out and move-in dates.

Gosselin, AGS Mover, Bolliger and Crown Relocations are some of the most well-known international moving companies operating in Italy that also offer storage space.

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