I write novels and make visual art from keyboard marks and negative space. Across forms, my work is after one thing: the translation of grace into language.
Sardinia and Calabria are the examples in this issue, but they are part of a broader pattern of repopulation grants — income support, business start-up money, symbolic rents — aimed at getting working-age people to stay and live.
In Spain, the answer has increasingly been immigrants. Whole villages in "España vaciada," the emptied interior, have been brought back from the edge by families from Latin America and Morocco.
We have been thinking more generally about infrastructure and resources, things you can't really know until you spend several seasons in a place.
All three of this week's Italian houses are in Umbria, the landlocked green heart of the country. Home to ancient Etruscan towns like Orvieto – known to the Etruscans as Velzna – built on outcroppings of volcanic stone (tufa) that contain ancient passages beneath that you can still explore.
abandoned homes, akiya, cheap houses, Japan, Portugal, moving abroad, expat life, rural real estate
Abandoned houses in Japan and Portugal, from $5k akiyas to stone ruins. Plus relocation grants and visa pathways worth investigating this week. Hi! We're Wally and Malia, and this is the very first issue of Remnant, so let's do introductions. We're writers with kids