“Lavorare ancora sulla casa, ma in modo diverso” ("Still working on housing, but in a different way")

Right, issue, shelter, emergency: though with different weights, all these terms have been associated with the word housing. A word that, as a leitmotif, accompanied the '900 and that, after the dropping of attention by public policies, is read again as a signal of an increasingly widespread situation of hardship. Nowadays, housing is a privileged observatory both on changes in society and in forms of urban citizenship, as well as a field of projects accumulation. Due to its persistence, sometimes the solutions developed seem akin to old experiences, yet adjusted according to the current radically changed conditions, which call for a close observation of the actual effects caused by new projects and policies. The swinging between breaks, continuity and trials of innovation is even more apparent when operating in a context such as Trieste, where the council housing is among the factors that, in the twentieth century, mostly affected the history of the city. In 1902, a year before the introduction of the act with which Luzzatti created the public housing authorities in Italy (Di Biagi, Marchigiani, Marin 2002), within the Hapsburg Empire port of Trieste, the first municipal body in charge of implementing housing policies saw the light. Since then, Trieste housing policies have been a constant object of research and integration of different actors and actions, also considering the demographic and social dynamics that, in comparison to those at a national and European level, continue to be exemplifying and borderline. Therefore, the city remains a privileged setting to think over the changes occurring in the way of living and, although with different approaches from those we were used to, on the manner in which the handling of the housing issue can still contribute to shape urban spaces and welfare.