Redevelopment after the Abruzzo Event

Natural disasters raise quite a number of interdisciplinary issues concerning regional growth and local development, as well as public finance and sustainability, to mention just a few of them: they deserve special attention in our globalized world, given the expectation of a growing impact of climate-related disasters; interesting lessons can be learned from the events under investigation and can be successfully shared as a payback to those who helped upon their occurrence. A case in point has to do with the devastating earthquake – known as the Abruzzo event – which occurred in L’Aquila and its environs on April 6, 2009 and revived the debate on recovery problems to be faced under similar circumstances. Due to the huge amount of money needed for redevelopment purposes, financial management plays a key role and useful insights can be gained by exploring the process of financial innovation, encompassing cat bonds and micro-finance: micro-credit might be resorted to even within the framework of new financial engineering instruments, such as Urban Development Funds; they include some initiatives recently promoted by the European Investment Bank and the European Commission (such as JESSICA, JEREMIE, and JASMINE), to be properly considered in sight of rebuilding L’Aquila and its surrounding boroughs.