As stores retreat, commercial desertification advances. Between 2014 and 2024, more than 140,000 fixed-site retail businesses, from grocery stores to newsstands, from bars to fuel stations, disappeared from Italy's streets and squares. Such a drain of businesses threatens to leave a significant share of the population without access to essential services and primary goods: already more than 26 million Italians live in municipalities that have seen one or more essential neighborhood businesses disappear permanently from their territory, replaced by Amazon or city supermarkets. “Investments are needed to stem commercial desertification,” proposes Patrizia De Luise, President of Confesercenti. "We need a flat tax for those who open in desertified areas, and bureaucratic simplifications. But also continuing education to combat the dramatic collapse in the birth rate of new economic activities". In fact, the food sector shows a particularly serious situation: in 565 municipalities, more than 3.8 million people can no longer buy bread at a bakery near their homes, and more than 1.2 million residents have lost access to bakeries. For other groceries, the situation is also dramatic: about 3 million people no longer have a beverage store, 2.3 million can no longer buy fresh fish at a fish market, 2.1 million can no longer find a fruit and vegetable store, 1.6 million can no longer turn to a butcher's shop, and nearly 800,000 have to give up even convenience stores.
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