If you're building a tall apartment block you're already trusting your building regulations/safety practices to prevent disaster; having a bridge above you doesn't seem inherently more risky than having n floors of housing above you.

It's Genoa: sandwiched between sea and mountains, space is at a premium. Think of those lovely shots of Manarola and Cinque Terre, multiply them by a million, add one of Europe's biggest ports, and that's Genoa.

In this case it is why they built a bridge over existing buildings.

A photo of the construction (1964):

https://www.autostrade.it/comunicazione-e-media/mediateca/ar...

Because most of thr time bridges don’t collapse and it’s nice not to waste the space and create an unpleasant pedestrian dead zone below?

The precollapse photos make me think that the bridge was built over an existing industrial area with minimal disruption to existing structures.

Looking at some of the links from the various Wikipedia articles on the subject, it does look like the buildings underneath the bridge predate the bridge: http://informesdelaconstruccion.revistas.csic.es/index.php/i...

The assumption is "falling bridges are a black swan event, there's hundreds of more likely corner cases to cover before you get there."

Usually, the bridge is new-ish (second half of 20th century or newer) and the buildings are 19th century or older. https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0651354,14.4307227,3a,75y,22...

Same reason they build housing near other highly undesirable locations.

By the same logic people should not live inside buildings other than cabins: if the building itself collapses the inhabitants don't survive.