Staying or Moving? Aspirations, Constraints and Residential Intentions in Italy's Major Urban Regions of Rome and Milan: Convergent Mechanisms and Divergent Motivations

Residential mobility is a key mechanism of urban socio‐spatial change, yet less attention has been paid to the formation of mobility intention preceding actual moves, particularly in Southern European contexts. This paper investigates the socio‐economic, demographic, housing and neighbourhood factors associated with residential mobility intentions in Italy's two main urban regions, Rome and Milan, together with respondents' stated motivations for prospective mobility and immobility. Drawing on data from the 2025 MetroMosaic Survey, we use logistic regression models to assess whether established correlates of mobility intentions operate differently across two metropolitan contexts that share the same national housing system but have followed divergent socioeconomic and housing‐market trajectories. Results show substantial convergence between Rome and Milan: education, employment instability, housing tenure and adequacy, household composition and neighbourhood dissatisfaction are associated with mobility intentions in broadly similar ways. Greater differentiation emerges in stated motivations, with significant differences between the two urban regions concentrated in involuntary/forced and neighbourhood‐related reasons. Overall, the findings suggest that shared institutional conditions structure the opportunities and constraints underlying residential intentions, while contrasting metropolitan contexts emerge in some of the reasons associated with moving or staying. The study highlights the value of residential intentions for understanding how aspirations, resources and constraints interact before residential mobility is realised.