The recent demographic dynamics of Italian metropolitan cities: comparison between Italian and foreign poulations

This paper aims to analyse the demographic dynamics that occurred in the largest Italian urban areas (14 metropolitan cities) in the last ten years, paying particular attention to the emerging geographical patterns. The study adopts a multiple comparative perspective: between centre and peripheries, between Northern and Southern contexts and between native and foreign populations. Weuse official data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for 2011-2020. This data allows us to analyse how the different components of population growth (natural increase and net migration) have affected the dynamics of the 14 metropolitan cities. The results show that the distribution patterns of foreigners in the metropolitan contexts present configurations that do not reflect those of Italians, and, likewise, the demographic dynamics affecting them differ strongly from those of the Italian population by counterbalancing the differentiation between growing and declining contexts.