Like a One-Euro Avalanche
From Sardinia to Maremma, with pit stops in London and San Francisco: how a foreign report triggers the Italian media’s latest love affair with “reviving” abandoned villages
You can read the original Italian article by Matteo Cerri on
There’s a storyline we Italians know far too well. A California-based journalist, Lauren Markham, stumbles upon the “€1 house” trend in Italy (which, let’s be honest, was about time), gets intrigued (sort of), and writes a long, thoughtful essay about it in the Virginia Quarterly Review (Winter 2024). Then a few months later — because, like pork, nothing in journalism goes to waste — a shorter, more narrative-driven version appears in The Guardian (July 2025). Italy reads. Italy shares. Italy gets emotional.
And then comes La Nazione, with a headline like:
“Montieri sets the example. Urban regeneration: the €1 house project cited by The Guardian.”
Implicit subtext: “If the Brits write about it, then it must be true.”
Quick aside before I forget: credit goes to my friend Marco Colombo — journalist (ex-BBC), PR guy, half-Maremman half-Brescian, expat, and proud Italian returnee — for sending me the article that lit this particular fuse. Marco is the kind of guy you can’t stand but also deeply adore… now self-exiled in Maremma. Poor soul. With a saint for a wife and beautiful children — but that’s another story.
Back to the article.
Here’s the issue: neither VQR nor The Guardian portray Montieri as a success story. They present it — intelligently, and with nuance — as an experiment full of unknowns. A media operation, a half-won (and half-lost) gamble. A tale that walks a tightrope between regeneration, gentrification, naïveté, and branding.
The real problem isn’t Montieri.
It’s how we talk about it.
Markham’s piece is honest: it follows the desire to reinvent one’s life elsewhere, lays out the practical challenges, and questions the role of the affluent Westerner “buying” their way into a community that never invited them. Sure, it sometimes indulges in that familiar Anglo guilt-trip about colonial missteps in Spain or Mexico. Still, Sedini (Sardinia) welcomes her with a red carpet, front-row seats at town hall meetings, and glowing mentions in official press releases. But two years on, few homes have been sold. The project hovers in limbo — somewhere between ambition and skepticism.
Yet just one Guardian article is enough for Italy to shout: “Success!”
Montieri — a village in Tuscany’s Maremma region, hit hard by mine closures in the '90s — is suddenly hailed as an “international model of regeneration.” Local media lap it up, institutions rush to capitalize, and stats — 70 houses sold! new businesses! — are brandished as proof of rebirth.
But rebirth of what, exactly?
Let’s be clear: it’s great if something is working. But real estate transactions ≠ revival. They’re a signal. A start. Nothing more.
You can sell a house. But you must build relationships.
Regeneration isn’t about unloading ruins — it’s about building life infrastructure. Services. Welcoming. Belonging. We know this well from working in over 20 Italian towns, from Caprarica di Lecce to Mussomeli in Sicily (our most successful cases). There, we don’t just post listings online. We build trust — between local governments, citizens, and newcomers. In Mussomeli, over 125 homes (28 through our work) have been sold, generating €7 million in local economic impact — through artisans, restaurants, hotels, construction crews. But most importantly, they’ve created relationships. Cross-cultural encounters. Shared projects.
In Caprarica, day-to-day work hasn’t just brought visitors — it’s brought new residents. Not just investment, but impact. Not a quick fix, but a slow and complex process where foreigners aren’t exotic extras, but active partners. No top-down directives. No fake Disneylands. Just a pact — patiently built.
Italy, seen through other people’s eyes
Here lies the true paradox. We need a British or American paper to say something “works” before we believe it. But calling a fragile — possibly misguided — project a “success” is dangerous. It inflates expectations. Attracts the wrong investors. And ultimately, betrays local communities.
Worse, it gets embarrassing when someone — like me — actually reads the sources and discovers it’s all just a clumsy copy-paste.
Instead of regurgitating triumphant press releases, maybe Italian journalists interested in this topic could do what journalism used to do: go to these places, talk to people who live there, work there, struggle there. They might find that Montieri needs a lot more than praise. That Sedini isn’t quite there yet. That “la dolce vita” can’t be bought on Idealista.
And they might even tell stories like the ones we share every day on ITS Journal — stories that don’t wait for Anglo applause to get things done properly.
A storytelling avalanche
The problem is that the very idea of the “€1 house” has become a viral narrative. An avalanche. It began with a provocation by Sgarbi in Salemi, bounced around social media, then mutated into reality shows (like The Good Life with Lorraine Bracco on HGTV, to name just one), soaked in sentimental syrup for the poor, romanticized Italy.
Meanwhile, real villages — with collapsing roofs, aging residents, and emigrated children — remain stuck in a narrative that flatters, distorts, and ultimately erases them.
One euro. A thousand illusions.
If selling a house for €1 helps reignite a local economy — fantastic. But if it only serves to generate buzz, headlines, and interviews, then we have a problem. Not an urban planning problem. A cultural one.
Instead of asking “Does a house really cost €1?”, maybe we should ask “What is a community truly worth?” And who has the right — and responsibility — to bring it back to life?
Thinking of the many people working daily in these places, I’d humbly suggest that journalists (especially the Italian ones) take a trip. Spend a few silent days in these towns. Then write.