Human and Social Sciences

... In questa prospettiva, nella terza parte del volume curato da Lida Vigano-ni, si provava a valutare anche le potenzialità ei limiti del ... Nella prima (“Governance e politiche negli spazi urbani e regionali”) si affronta in generale il tema delle scelte e delle politi-che messe in atto o ...

The article analyzes the impact of the new attractors of shopping and leisure in the suburbs of the Metropolitan Area of Naples. After an introduction on the different features of today’s suburbs, the focus shifts on the transformations in the area to the north of Naples along an important axial highway (the Circumvallazione, officially the SP1). This axial road, as well as the so-called “median axis” (Asse Mediano), are analyzed as retail and consumption spaces. This case study demonstrates the complex reality of a suburb too hastily considered as uniform and anonymous: although in this area there is chaos, decay and forms of illegality, it is also characterized by a relative centrality thanks to new retail and consumption spaces which represent key-places for their users, places where the rhythm of life is slowed down and socialisation is somewhat recovered.

The article analyzes the impact of the new attractors of shopping and leisure in the suburbs of the Metropolitan Area of Naples. After an introduction on the different features of today’s suburbs, the focus shifts on the transformations in the area to the north of Naples along an important axial highway (the Circumvallazione, officially the SP1). This axial road, as well as the so-called “median axis” (Asse Mediano), are analyzed as retail and consumption spaces. This case study demonstrates the complex reality of a suburb too hastily considered as uniform and anonymous: although in this area there is chaos, decay and forms of illegality, it is also characterized by a relative centrality thanks to new retail and consumption spaces which represent key-places for their users, places where the rhythm of life is slowed down and socialisation is somewhat recovered.

The contribution starts from the historical importance of the commercial function in Naples in structuring the urban space, a function to which it is possible largely to trace the long-lasting relationship between consumption and demand for places, as well as many changes in the urban image. Retail organized the city not only on the main streets but also at the scale of non-minoritarian and widespread micro-spaces in the various neighborhoods, in a Naples that, especially in the twentieth century, was transformed according to macro logic very different from today’s. Today the element that seems to most order the structure of places and the urban landscape is consumption, mixed with living and related activities, walking and cultural functions: elements mediated by local authorities, which in turn must deal with new phenomena. The question arises in territorial terms, as retail and consumption (and their protagonists) claim places and public space. The case study will be that of the ...