Here’s one interesting way to rejuvenate certain abandoned regions of mainland Greece, mostly in rugged mountainous areas, or even remote islands: grant people an abandoned residence on the condition that it will be restored!
That’s what one town in Sicily, Gangi, is doing, and it’s apparently working.
Accrording to the NYTimes, homes in the picturesque central town, which straddles the Madonie mountain range, “are generally dilapidated, some abandoned generations ago” by residents emigrating to America and South America.
This is how the NYTimes describes the idea:
“The structures give new meaning to the term “fixer-upper,” and anyone who acquires one of the properties has just four years to restore it and make it livable.
But the offer has already lured dozens of holiday home hunters from around the world, and Gangi’s novel approach to revival has brought fresh opportunities to local builders and tradesmen while energizing tourism.
“For our Sicilian mentality, Gangi was considered to be too far from the sea” to be attractive for tourism, said Giuseppe Ferrarello, the mayor of the town, which lies on a windy, stomach-rattling road between Palermo and Catania.
The housing initiative, he said, instead “set in motion a mechanism that was previously unthinkable for a city in the center of Sicily,” where towns have shrunk in tandem with the region’s dwindling economic prospects.”