The building industry has often boosted the economy in Italy. After the killing landslide that hit Sarno in 1983, developers have built more and more houses which have taken up extensive stretches of the countryside in that area. This increase in house building was not caused by an increase in the population growth but rather by a relocation of those people affected by that natural disaster in farmed land.
In fact, most of the new settlements have been built illegally in all the area surrounding Sarno. This has brought about an unregulated development of sprawling villages which now coexist with the more traditional farms and colonial houses that once characterized this landscape.
During the last years, the need to build new homes at all costs has created a chaotic outskirt resembling, on a smaller scale, the suburban areas that were built in Italy by the end of WW2.