The Residential Mobility of Mid-Term Temporary Populations: Personal Trajectories and Sociospatial Patterns in Rome

This article examines how medium-term temporary dwellers—who have been living in a city for months or a few years without planning to settle in the long term—impact upon intra-urban residential mobility and sociospatial inequalities in Southern European contexts. Building on debates on residential mobility, (im)mobilities and temporary urban populations, the paper argues that these groups should be treated as a distinct and influential mobility actor. Empirically, the study draws on original mixed-methods evidence from Rome, combining a survey and follow-up interviews to link motivations for arrival, housing practices, and intra-urban relocations. Rome is discussed as a relevant Southern European case where post-crisis housing-market restructuring, uneven accessibility and the expansion of platform-mediated rental circuits intensify competition for centrally located housing. The findings show that temporary dwellers' residential movements and strategies contribute to neighbourhood change and can reinforce displacement pressures and unequal access to central and semi-central areas, thereby shaping broader patterns of residential mobility for the overall resident population.