In Italy's richest towns, coffins outnumber cradles four to one
In the wealthy towns of the north, deaths run four times births. But Cusago, just as rich, has an average age of 44: income doesn't track age.
In Forte dei Marmi, more people die than are born
Forte dei Marmi is one of the richest towns in Italy: €42,639 in average declared income, almost double the national average of €21,985. In 2025 it recorded 97 deaths and 24 births. Four coffins for every cradle.
This is no statistical fluke. It is the shape wealth takes along this stretch of coast. The received wisdom says that where people earn more they live better, and longer, as a community too. The figures say otherwise: some of the richest towns in the north are also the oldest, and they are emptying out.
Rich because old
Climb from the Tuscan coast into the hills and the script repeats. Lajatico, home of the Teatro del Silenzio, is the second richest town in the country with €61,361 in average income. In 2025 it counted 26 deaths and 7 births, and its old-age index stands at 389.9: nearly four older residents for every child, against a national 290.8.
Portofino, the richest of all at €98,577, has an average age of 53.4 years. Courmayeur, at the foot of Mont Blanc, declares €43,250 and in 2025 saw 29 deaths and 7 births. Pino Torinese, on the hill above Turin, €41,602 in income and 97 deaths against 40 births. These are well-off places because they are old: high pensions, assets, second homes. Not because they are full of families.
The richest towns in Italy (average income, 2023)
Source: DatiItalia — analysis of MEF data
Cusago breaks the pattern
Then there are the towns that are rich and young. Cusago, on the edge of Milan, declares €43,106 in average income: more than Courmayeur, more than Forte dei Marmi. Yet its average age is 44 years and its old-age index stops at 136.5, less than half the national level. In 2025 it recorded 60 deaths and 38 births: still in the red, but three to two, not four to one.
Same story in Basiglio, €52,147 in income, average age 45.9 years. Here the wealth is not that of retired holidaymakers. It belongs to the commuters who, in their forties, buy a house in the green twenty minutes from Milan, where the average income is €40,521. Income follows the people who work, not the people born there. That is why it does not predict a town's age.
Average income, town by town
Each town coloured by declared income
It isn't that the rich die younger
Read these numbers carefully. Forte dei Marmi's high death rate does not mean its residents die young: it means almost no one is born there any more and the population is old. It is a matter of age structure, not health, paired with a birth rate near the bottom of the national table. A town of only the elderly buries a great deal and cradles little, however comfortable it may be.
The proof lies in the long run. Forte dei Marmi had 7,217 residents in 2021; by 2026 it counts 6,550. Six hundred and sixty-seven fewer people in five years, in one of the places where a square metre costs the most. Solonghello, 196 residents in the Alessandria hills, is the fourth richest town in Italy at €49,373: a handful of high incomes in a village that could vanish.
Wealth, here, does not make children. Cusago declares €43,106 and has an average age of 44. Forte dei Marmi declares €42,639, and its average age is 52.6.