1,721,015 research outputs found
International migrations in extra-urban areas: exploring challenges and opportunities in Italy and Japan
No full textMajor urban areas have always played an attractive role for migratory flows. More recently, however, small and medium-sized towns, as well as rural and peripheral areas, often isolated, with limited public transport access, services, and without previous relevant experiences of international migration, have witnessed an increase in terms of migrants arrival, asking for a particular attention and reflection. Specific opportunities may emerge in terms of local transformation of less favoured areas and migrants’ social inclusion, but peculiar challenges may arise too. Developing on qualitative fieldworks focusing on international migrants in Shiga prefecture in Japan (conducted in 2017), on the one side, and in small-medium towns and rural areas in Italy (conducted in 2020-2021), the chapter aims at discussing the specific challenges and emerging opportunities connected to international migrations in extra-urban areas
Who shape the city? Non-profit associations and civil society initiatives in urban change processes: role and ambivalences
Get PDFThe present paper focuses on non-profit sector and civil society initiatives within urban change processes. More specifically, it looks into experiences that are characterised by a local/area-based ap-proach and that arise in relation, response and reaction to the processes of city change, becoming and be-ing recognised as one of its actors. By examining different initiatives variously involved in the regeneration process of a semi-central neighbourhood of the city of Torino (Italy), and by investigating their origins, goals and actions, the paper addresses the transformations that they go through over time, their complex relation with other local actors, and their role in the regeneration process, overall pointing out the different forms of ambiguity and ambivalences that they bear.<br /
The Diversity That We Love. Commodification and Control of Diversity in Gentrifying Neighbourhoods
Get PDFIn a time of growing appreciation for urban diversity, consuming ethnic food, sharing the streets with foreign people and showing interest for cultural diversity often operate as a means of social distinction, in particular among the new urban middle classes. Hence, culturally and ethnically diverse atmosphere have come to be considered as an asset for urban branding and neighbourhoods’ regeneration. The implications for those who embody such diversity, however, are often unclear.
The paper addresses the ambiguous relationship between diversity and urban upgrading, focusing on the case of Turin and, more specifically, on a mixed neighbourhood that after a period of misfortune has become one of the new trendy spots of the city, also building on its diverse and gritty atmosphere. Bringing together literature on gentrification and social mix, commodification of diversity in urban transformations, and everyday multiculturalism, the paper offers an analysis of practices of negotiation, control and commodification of diversity in different domains of neighbourhood’s life: commercial landscape, public spaces and neighbourhoods’ representations. It argues that middle classes’ love for diversity often appears related to the ability to control it, to decide which kind of diversity is ‘good’ and should be visible and displayed in the neighbourhood space. In this frame, diversity may become a particular kind of commodity, to be consumed in a safe and sanitized environment and the appreciation for diversity may lead to forms of control, reification and exploitation rather than to integration and social inclusion
Between a soft and a hard place: Southern European gentrification for short-term populations
No full textFocusing on a selected case study in a central area of the city of Turin in north-western Italy, the main aim of this article is to discuss fifth-wave gentrification processes within the framework of austerity urbanism in Southern European cities. Based on semi-structured interviews, participant observation and digital re-photography, the paper discusses how short-term populations are used as shock troops to sanitise and cleanse rebellious and poor neighbourhoods. More specifically, the contribution explores the material and symbolic dynamics, or what we might call the hard and soft interventions of gentrification, through which public-private partnerships attempt to produce cities for increasingly affluent (short-term) users and to erase conflicts and undesirable urban populations, also claiming an aesthetic dimension. The first part of the article situates the analysis within the literature on fifth-wave gentrification and the debate on Southern European cities, while the second part draws on semi-structured interviews and visual digital methods to examine hard and soft interventions of gentrification, namely evictions and real estate redevelopment on the one hand, and graffiti and mural art on the other, in a central, multi-ethnic area of Turin, where local authorities and private investors have teamed up to design an upscale restructuring for short-term populations
2021-2022: Aumentano le persone in fuga, tra pandemia, conflitti e crisi climatica
No full textIn un anno segnato da nuovi e vecchi conflitti, pandemia e cambiamento climatico, il numero di persone in fuga ha superato la soglia dei 100 milioni. Di questi, 60 milioni circa sono sfollati interni, ovvero persone che, pur fuggite dal luogo di residenza abituale, sono rimaste all’interno dei confini del proprio Stato, a cui si aggiungono circa 32 milioni di rifugiati (di cui quasi 6 milioni rifugiati Palestinesi), quasi 5 milioni di richiedenti asilo, altrettante persone bisognose di protezione internazionale e circa 3 milioni di apolidi. Oltre il 70% di chi lascia il proprio Paese cerca rifugio in uno Stato confinante e solo una piccola parte arriva in Europa. Tra il 2021 e i primi nove mesi del 2022, gli ingressi irregolari nei Paesi dell’Unione europea sono stati meno di 450 mila mentre tra 2021 e prima metà del 2022 sono state presentate quasi 1 milione di nuove domande d’asilo, di cui circa 100 mila in Italia. La carenza di canali di ingresso legali e sicuri costringono le persone in fuga, pur riconosciute e protette dal diritto internazionale, a mettersi nelle mani di trafficanti e ad affrontare viaggi lunghi e pericolosi, seguendo una varietà di rotte: le due rotte principali di accesso sono state quella del Mediterraneo Centrale e quella Balcanica. Sono poi oltre 12 milioni le persone che hanno fatto ingresso in Unione Europea dall’Ucraina dall’inizio del conflitto e sono circa 170 mila i cittadini ucraini arrivati in Italia a fine settembre 2022. Per la maggior parte questi hanno potuto fruire di una specifica forma di protezione temporanea della durata di 12 mesi che copre, a livello europeo, circa 5 milioni di persone. Il numero di persone in fuga e le richieste di protezione aumentano ovunque, mentre le forme di riconoscimento e protezione subiscono una contrazione e una diversificazione che rischiano di creare richiedenti asilo e rifugiati di serie A e di serie B, mentre chi scappa da disastri ambientali ed effetti del cambiamento climatico ancora fatica a veder riconosciuta il proprio status in assenza di un quadro condiviso
Adaptive urbanism in ordinary cities: Gentrification and temporalities in Turin (1993–2021)
No full textThe aim of this paper is to ground gentrification processes within a broader urban transformation pattern and within a deeper historical account, taking an ordinary city into consideration: Turin, in the North West of Italy. The paper elaborates on qualitative data collected along a twenty year span, allowing reflection on different phases and dynamics of capital extraction across time. We will show that, problematically, gentrification was considered as a positive model by local authorities and that it was adopted as a reference by both private and public actors to generate local growth and to react to economic crises
Local Policies of Diversity in (Post-)Industrial Cities: A Research Agenda Between Italy and Japan
No full textThis contribution aims at discussing a developing research that examines the variety of urban policies interested in migration and diversity and their mutual links, if any. We argue that contrasting approaches and understandings of migration and diversity emerge from urban policies, one that intends to control, manage, and tame diversity, and another that aims at promoting, attracting, and consuming it. The research adopts a qualitative, multi-site approach, and is currently on-going in Japan and Italy, and, more specifically, in the sister-cities of Nagoya and Turin, that have been chosen as exemplary cases of industrial/post-industrial cities differently including diversity in their
local policies and strategic urban planning
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