Special Issue “Affordable Housing and Economic, Environmental, Social Sustainability: A Real Estate Perspective”

Dear Colleagues,

Theoretical and empirical research on economic, environmental, and social sustainability has experienced significant expansion, with methodologies and applications to support decision-making from the early design stages, in new building construction projects or in the retrofitting of historical heritage. Sustainability assessment of real estate projects is a multidisciplinary field that applies approaches and models to harmonize the dimensions that emerge in identifying and quantifying a project’s effects and impacts, which are expressed through specific performance indicators. In many studies, the principles of the circular economy are taken as a central theoretical approach, based on the concept of a self-generating economic system. Despite the attention this topic has garnered within the scientific community, there remains significant scope for research to harmonize economic, environmental, and social perspectives and to explore methods to quantify—even through specific indicators—the multifaceted impacts of various project options involving cultural and architectural heritage. Such heritage can serve as a key lever for meeting housing demand at affordable costs—particularly regarding large, decommissioned public estates or underutilized properties, in territorial and urban contexts. Moreover, the adaptive reuse of historic assets in the context of housing deprivation is central to the international and European regulatory framework. In Europe, for example, in the document “The European Affordable Housing Plan”—Strasbourg, 16.12.2025, COM (2025), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions—sustainability is viewed as a multidimensional prerequisite for affordability. The European Affordable Housing Plan, accompanied by regulations enacted at the national level—for example, in Italy, the “Piano Casa” (Law 116/2026 converting Decree-Law 66/2026)—is premised on the idea that the supply shortage cannot be resolved solely through new construction; rather, it requires the rehabilitation of existing assets and the regeneration of unused properties, thereby fostering reduced land consumption, social value creation, economic efficiency, and environmental sustainability. With these premises, this Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the latest advances in methodologies for evaluating economic, environmental, and social sustainability, focusing on the reuse of architectural heritage as a lever for supporting affordable housing production. We invite contributions that address these issues through the lens of real estate market analysis, and project evaluation methodologies and models.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The Relationship between Housing Needs, Housing Affordability, and Sustainability;
• Economic, Environmental, and Social Sustainability in Social Housing Interventions;
• Integrated Life Cycle Approaches and Composite Sustainability Indicators;
• Real Estate Market Dynamics, Asset Price Determinants, and Pricing Processes Analysis;
• Recovery and Valorization of Public Heritage Sites of Historical and Architectural Value;
• Urban Regeneration and Heritage Reuse;
• Urban Regeneration, Impacts, and Social Value.

Prof. Dr. Elena Fregonara
Dr. Cristina Coscia
Guest Editors