Camillo Boano, Polytechnic of Turin, Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: English | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-1-5 | Accepted: 2024-6-18 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.13128/sdt-15047

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. Mobilizing the figures of Lifelines and Slow death, the paper offers a series of incomplete spatial narratives of different territories in crisis in which inhabiting is questioned. Beirut, peripheral Paris, and northern Lebanon show an Inhabiting on hold: a form of space where reconfigurations of an affective economy of precariousness challenge architecture and urbanism, forging spaces of inconvenience, to describe the pressure of the proximity of many kinds of tension, with positive and negative valences. The paper aims to make visible a series of margins, edges of cities, minorities inhabited by majorities, spatial micro-worlds in which one can see the macroscopic remoteness of institutions and the gigantic power of autonomy, of makeshift solutions, and the effects of structuring territorial inequality in a perpetual state of becoming.
Keywords: inhabitation; lifelines; camps; crisis; territory.

Cohabitations on the edge of war territories: Jinwar, a village self-run by women in Kurdistan

Fabiana Cioni, PhD and Independent researcher, Livorno, Italy

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-1-25 | Accepted: 2024-6-10 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15107

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. The article presents a unique case study where the principle of territoriality is applied in war-torn Syria (2012), particularly in the northern part of the country, where self-governance has taken root. In the territories of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), known as Rojava, the population has established an exemplary form of direct democracy that has long been of interest to the scientific community. Within this context, the Kurdish women’s movement founded the women’s eco-village Jinwar, built by women for women to live according to communal principles. The village was established near the Turkish border, an area threatened by potential attacks from Turkish military forces. This active research experience allowed the author to participate in both the construction works (2018) and the communal life (2019-2020). The model of reconciled coexistence of democratic confederalism, which supports the village’s experience, constitutes the foundation where a free society capable of finding a new balance with its territory may evolve.
Keywords: democratic confederalism; direct democracy; Jinwar; Jineolojî; decolonial feminism.

Southern hospitality. In the Messina Strait Area, and throughout Southern Italy, widespread welcoming of migrants brings multiple benefits

Alberto Ziparo, University of Florence, Department of Architecture

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-4-28 | Accepted: 2024-6-5 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15298

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. In Calabria and Sicily, as well as throughout Southern Italy, widespread consumption and degradation of the territory, in striking contrast to enduring landscape excellences, result in the huge dimensions of empty or unused housing heritage, at the top even compared to the sensational levels reached by this phenomenon on the national scale. If in Italy about a quarter of the housing stock is in fact empty, this share reaches 30% in Sicily and exceeds 40% in Calabria. This makes paradoxical not only the existence of local housing problems, but also the fact that migrants cannot find a home and often have to lie, in sub-human conditions, in improvised and precarious ‘welcome’ centres. Therefore, even more than in the rest of the country, in the Italian South, Sicily, Calabria and especially in the Messina Strait Area it appears urgent to make empty and often abandoned housing stock – and building heritage in general – available for the priceless human and social capital represented by the migrants. Those of them who intend to stay in these areas could actually contribute to local self-sustainable development actions promoted, today, by community planning practices together with the ordinary landscape and spatial planning instruments of the two Regions. This article explores such topics and illustrates some actions, also ‘grassroots’, through which we are trying to combine heritage reuse, social and cultural integration, and reterritorialization.
Keywords: Southern Italy; unused housing stock; migrants welcome; heritage reuse; sustainable planning practices.
Social as a movement

Giovanni Attili, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Visions
First submitted: 2024-6-6 | Accepted: 2024-6-6 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15391

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. Within the condition of complex connectivity and accelerated mobility that characterizes our lives, the article focuses on the world of migrants and the important challenges it poses to our way of understanding space, society and politics. The movement of these subjects, in fact, constitutes a factor of subversion: it reveals the violence of the national order structured through exclusionary geopolitical devices and becomes an opportunity to analyse the most important contradictions of a society and its political structure. The very idea of ​​community, understood as a systemic, closed, consolidated structure, given once and for all as an invariant element of territorial identity, faces a crisis under the weight of incessant migratory flows. The disruption of traditional ties and constraints outlines a different idea of ​​community: permeable, changeable, unstable. A community of practices within which non-deterministically identifiable relationships and interactions create on a territorial basis. In this sense, migratory movements definitively transgress what Appadurai calls the metaphysics of sedentary life, i.e. the belief and prejudice of considering sedentary living as the normal condition universally accepted/practiced by mankind.
Keywords: migrants; city; sedentary life; nomadism; community.

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Against the stronghold city: on the core value of ‘being together’

Lidia Decandia, University of Sassari, Department of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning at Alghero Campus

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Visions
First submitted: 2024-6-6 | Accepted: 2024-6-6 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15392

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. By developing our awareness of the challenges posed by the continuous migratory movements that traverse our lands, this article encourages us to reflect upon the deep meaning of the word ‘city’. It challenges the idea that the city can only be identified as that stable, circumscribed form, the hub of territorial control, the place where power is centralised and production surplus accumulated and where the foreign and the diverse have to be kept at the edges, and it attempts to question again the origin of this phenomenon. It takes up Mumford’s constructive insights once more, confirmed by the archaeological discoveries of recent decades, and proposes that the deep core of the ‘urban’ be traced back to those sacred places for ceremonial meetings, where peoples that came from different parts converged to celebrate being together, with brief rituals and festivals linked with the course of the seasons, the passing of time, the cyclic nature of life and the cult of ancestors. This meditation on the roots leads to the seed enclosed within the word ‘city’ being expanded to take on a new meaning, of which we have however always been aware: that of a relational, collective work, never a cut-and-dried fact – a concern that must be continuously and creatively reimagined, indeed through the sharing and pooling of different ways of life and the interaction and exchange between diversities.
Keywords: city; origin; diversities; sacred places; festival.

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The Last Twenty. For a theory of impoverishment

Tonino Perna, University of Messina, Professor Emeritus of Economic sociology
Ilaria Agostini, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Department for the Cultural Heritage

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-6-10 | Accepted: 2024-7-20 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15397

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. The Last Twenty Report is a research document about the current state of the world’s 20 most impoverished and vulnerable countries. Despite their rich culture, arts, and knowledge, these countries face significant challenges exacerbated by prolonged conflicts and other detrimental mechanisms. The medium to long-term goal of these research is to gauge the social, political, and environmental ‘temperature’ of our planet, starting from these 20 countries. This approach offers a perspective on the future from the less visible side of the Earth, providing insight into where we are heading. Launched in 2021 in Reggio Calabria, the L20 project has organized events in cities like Milan, Rome, L’Aquila, and Santa Maria di Leuca. These events laid the foundations for continuous monitoring of L20 countries conditions, with a special emphasis on critical issues such as climate change, poverty, and inequality. The 2023 report, the second edition after that of 2022, aims to track the evolution of conditions in these countries, highlighting not only socio-economic challenges and the impact of climate change, but also the new geopolitical scenarios and their influence on the 20 countries.
Keywords: impoverished countries; perspective reversal; conflicts; social, political, environmental issues; local/global scenarios.

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This time it was different. Banlieue 2023

Agostino Petrillo, Politecnico Milano 1863, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Visions
First submitted: 2024-7-4 | Accepted: 2024-7-4 | Published Online: 2024-8-11
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15446

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. For decades, French banlieues have been the site of recurrent ‘riots’ that have made them contested territories par excellence. The traditional interpretive paradigm, which considers them as cyclical events regulated by internal logics, unrelated to the common political, social, and economic history, is now largely obsolete. Especially since the 2023 uprisings, triggered by the killing of the teenager Nahel, have introduced new dimensional and qualitative factors that must be linked to a combination of several conditions, including transformations of labour, shrinkage of the welfare state, and new forms of social exclusion. In particular, the extension of clashes from metropolitan outskirts to central, suburban, and rural areas, even beyond the French borders, signals a new phase of urban conflict whose mapping is long overdue. In drawing it, we should recognise that the explosions of open violence in riots are but an episodic form taken by a persistent, widespread, and latent urban violence, rooted in processes of gentrification, expulsion, and social and spatial segregation.
Keywords: banlieues; riots; social and spatial segregation; gentrification; new urban conflict.

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Neighbours, not by chance. Italian and migrant housing trajectories in Castel Volturno

Serena Olcuire, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering
Alessandra Esposito, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering
Marzia Mauriello, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Francesco Abbamonte, PhD and independent researcher

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-1-17 | Accepted: 2024-7-19 | Published Online: 2024-8-12
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15089

(accepted version, proposed editing)

Abstract. Between 2021 and 2022, as part of the SI.VALUTA local assessment project, the authors carried out a research and analysis work in Castel Volturno, exploring some local housing dynamics in the light of the migration processes that, in various ways and at different times, have affected this area. Here, dispersed in an extensive semi-abandoned housing stock, Italians and foreigners coexist, with different backgrounds but similar housing outcomes. In this paper, we investigate the common elements of such housing paths that emerged from structured and semi-structured interviews. The fieldwork, which involved several periods of observation, highlights the role of Castel Volturno as a landing place for life paths in contraction: a time of economic instability, of housing hardship, of administrative irregularity. This phenomenon is the result of ‘structured’ forms of precariousness, regardless of the geographical, ethnic and cultural origin of the subjects encountered. As a conclusion we show how, despite the many contact points in the reasons for arriving to this territory, there remains a lack of mutual recognition between the different groups, which leads to an impossibility of building alliances.

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Rethinking migrant farm workers’ housing: a modelling pathway in the Gioia Tauro Plain

Alessandra Corrado, University of Calabria, Department of Political and Social Sciences
Mariafrancesca D’Agostino, University of Calabria, Department of Political and Social Sciences
Francesco Piobbichi, Mediterranean Hope - FCEI (Federation of Evangelic Churches in Italy), Rome
Karen Urso, University of Calabria, Department of Political and Social Sciences

Volume 12 no. 1, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-3-4 | Accepted: 2024-6-5 | Published Online: 2024-8-12
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15206

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. In recent decades, due to the processes of capitalist rearrangement of the agri-food sector, rural areas have witnessed a respatialization of migration which has seen an increasing number forced migrants and economic migrants, seasonal or otherwise, settle in peripheral areas, employed as flexible and precarious workforce in agriculture. The contemporary agri-food system is now characterized by the dependence of some labour-intensive production sectors - such as the production and distribution of food - on the use of foreign workforce. But if on the one hand the presence of migrants in agri-food systems is considered essential for the maintenance of the productive sector, on the other it is systematically invisibilized by dynamics of exploitation and denial of rights. The goal of this work is to analyse the case of the Gioia Tauro Plain (Calabria), to evaluate the migration-agriculture relationship within rural spaces, highlighting how this connection is the result not only of factors linked to race and ethnicity, but also of the specific characteristics of territories and local policies, in particular those related to housing. A modelling of widespread and dignified living is proposed as a response to the needs of farm workers.
Keywords: international migration; rural change; agriculture-migration nexus; exploitation; housing issue.

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Towards a more just ecological transition and planning: from CERs to PEDs. Urban regeneration scenarios as an opportunity for reconstruction or the creation of self-sustainable communities

Andrea Marçel Pidalà, University of Palermo, Department of Architacture

Volume 12 no. 2, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-10-28 | Accepted: 2024-10-31 | Published Online: 2024-10-31
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15760

(accepted version, to be edited)

Abstract. The introduction, by international organisations, of a variety of policies, tools, and financial resources aimed at achieving climate neutrality represents the epiphenomenon of an important paradigm shift, in which the traditional anthropocenic approach is practically overturned in favour of a new centrality of cohabitation between humans and nature. Moreover, in Italy, the recent introduction of incentives such as ecobonus, seismic bonus, and superbonus has certainly highlighted patent critical issues, such as energy poverty, but also opened new pathways for a sustainable rethinking of dwelling. Starting from the energy production of communities and broadening the view to connected socio-technical aspects, such as energy efficiency of buildings and environmental remediation of cities, neighbourhoods, and small urban centres, it may be useful to evaluate the effects of such pathways in terms of the opportunities they offer for an overall ecological rehabilitation of settlements. These are increasingly unconventional practices, growing along with the emergence of new scientific insights on dwelling, a momentous example of which is represented by Positive Energy Districts (PED), tools that can provide an extraordinary chance to experiment with ecological and social justice by mainly leveraging consumption and, therefore, on the rebalance of water, land, and territorial resource consumption.
Keywords: resilience; inclusiveness; sustainability; ecological transition; cooperation.

 

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Exploring the integration of Renewable Energy Communities in urban planning. The case of Italy

Alessandra Marra, University of Salerno, Department of Civil Engineering

Volume 12 no. 2, 2024 | Language: English | Section: Science in action
First submitted: 2024-10-20 | Accepted: 2024-11-29 | Published Online: 2024-11-29
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15751

(accepted version, to be edited)

Abstract. Although Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) represent a valuable tool for urban planning to address the global challenge of carbon neutrality at the local level, planning is listed as an obstacle to the RECs deployment across Europe. With reference to the Italian case, the aim of this work is to investigate the current degree of inclusion and implementation of RECs in urban planning tools, in order to understand to what extent they are considered and possibly promoted in planning practice. The methodological approach followed is to start with the study of the general and sectoral urban planning tools of the municipalities in which there are RECs implemented. Subsequently, the analysis is extended to the general urban planning tools of the provincial capitals. The results obtained show that Italian urban planning is mostly obsolete with reference to the RECs issue. However, some municipalities stand out on the national scene as not silent, promoting RECs in their plans. Nevertheless, these are very recent urban planning tools, for many of which the formation process is still ongoing. Consequently, the inclusion of RECs promotion policies is mostly limited to strategic projections. In this direction, it is of interest to monitor the evolution of these plans to understand if and how the strategic forecasts enunciated will be translated into operational choices and rules, with particular attention to reward measures for the RECs promotion.
Keywords: carbon neutrality; Renewable Energy Communities; Italian planning practice; general urban plans; Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans.

 

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Return to the mountains. Opportunities and challenges

Paolo Baldeschi, formerly University of Florence, Department of Architecture

Volume 12 no. 2, 2024 | Language: Italian | Section: Reflections on the territorialist project
First submitted: 2024-10-16 | Accepted: 2024-11-14 | Published Online: 2024-11-29
DOI: 10.36253/sdt-15745

(accepted version, edited)

Abstract. The article explores the chances of a problematic return to the mountains through a comparison of data from the 1930s and surveys on recent immigration flows in the Italian Alps. Already in the 1930s, the INEA survey on “Mountain depopulation in Italy” (1932-1938) bore witness to a process of emigration intensified since WWI, identified its causes, dimensions, features and some possible remedies. A focus was placed on the qualitative aspects of an apparent repopulation process. Quite different appear the recent processes of “return to the Mountains” in terms of selective characteristics, geography and nature of immigrants. The article comparatively discusses the depth and quality of the process, as regards the social aspect, innovation in the agrarian economy and its impacts on territorial maintenance and restoration. Finally, it suggests some policies to support re-immigration processes, comparing 1930s proposals with the more recent ones.
Keywords: mountain repopulation; immigration flows; 1930s vs. 2000s; social innovation; territorial restoration.