Urban research, spanning from sociology to criminology, epidemiology and economics, has shown the impact of where people live on their life choices and opportunities. This framework, rooted in Blau's theoretical model (1960) and empirically pioneered by  Sampson (2012), posits that population structure and territorial opportunities and constraints impact life courses, crime, job opportunities, civic participation and epidemics. An imbalanced social structure could lead to residential segregation, with negative impacts on the less advantaged social classes.  

The European context, influenced for a long time by welfare states, now experiences rising residential segregation in major urban contexts. However, studies on the social structure need to shift their focus from the metropolitan core to the broader metropolitan areas, as shifts in economic opportunities and structural constraints increasingly define the fabric of these regions at this level. Moreover, there is the necessity to consider social structure in a long-run analysis. 

In this scenario, Italy has suffered a lack of extensive studies on metropolitan dynamics at a fine level (census tracts) and in a diachronic perspective. This is due to the difficulty of reconstructing the areas of the census tracts in the different census waves. The atavistic lack of large research groups in Italy has always discouraged single researchers from starting this promising challenge. The FIS grant, with its economic equipment and the possibility to promote a three-year activity program, can contribute to providing a unique long-term perspective on residential social structure (1991-2021), enabling the comparison of urban evolution in major Italian metropolitan areas.  

By establishing internationally comparable analytical units and providing detailed demographic, socio-economic, and infrastructure data, this project will enhance our understanding of urban transformation and lay the foundation for future research on metropolitan social structure. This objective will be pursued with the creation of a publicly accessible, interactive database for research, that will represent a resource for policymakers, planners, and researchers related to economic development, crime, effects of pollution, educational attainment, planning and local welfare.   

The project will see the collaboration of researchers across several disciplines in particular from economics, statistics, geography, demography, sociology.