The best cities to live in Italy: the 2015 list by Il Sole 24 Ore

January 4, 2016

The annual survey by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore revealed surprising results about the best cities to live in Italy. As obvious, the recently finished Expo made a huge difference for Milano, the economical capital of the country, usually a bit absent from the first positions in the Sole’s list.

This year, instead, Milan ranks as the second best city in Italy in terms of the quality of life: in 2014, it was in the eight position. We can reasonably suppose that all the implementations made during and for Expo and their beautiful result increased significantly the prestige of this amazing city, which has shown a constant growth and leaped six places ahead by comparison with the previous survey.

Another peculiar detail is that Milan outperforms Rome in the 2015 list and that the Eternal City, for its part, falls to the 16th position - losing four positions on last year and being surpassed by other major Italian cities, such as Florence (14th place) and Bologna (12th place).

The top results, on the other hand, are not really surprising: according to Il Sole 24 Ore, Bolzano in South Tyrol is the best city in the country, closely followed by its partner city of Trento - which gains the third place and, therefore, the podium.

Bolzano - it has to be noted - hits the first position for the fifth time in the report’s twenty-six years: its previous victories were in 1995, 2001, 2010, 2012. It usually stays, practically immobile, in the top ten.

The survey, realized by Il Sole 24 Ore in collaboration with Italy 24, tackles six different categories: Standard of Living, Business and Occupation, Service, Population, Law and Order, Leisure and 26 indicators with relative longlists, shortlists and finalists.

Bolzano deserves, in the first two and more economy-focused categories, a solid 4th place thanks to the indicators for occupation (71% versus an average of 56%), the scarcity of non-performing loans (5,7%) and consumption (€2660 per household, i.e. €700 above the national average).

The annual survey is extremely well-done and gives very interesting insights into the state of Italy, thanks to especially detailed information about welfare indications, services, leisure opportunities, security, etc.

Here’s the Top Ten of the best Italian cities in 2015:

  1. Bolzano, South Tyrol
  2. Milan
  3. Trento, South Tyrol
  4. Florence
  5. Sondrio, Lombardy
  6. Olbia, Sardinia
  7. Cuneo, Piedmont
  8. Aosta
  9. Siena, Tuscany
  10. Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna
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