Conference Agenda

This paper aims to explore the potential role of public spaces as social infrastructures by considering the results of a study conducted in Palermo as part of a research project funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. The theoretical approach of the research is based on the importance of social infrastructures as crucial places that can foster contact, mutual support and collaboration among people. The presence of public spaces acting as social infrastructure is essential to place-making and the creation of territorial identity especially in deprived places. Despite the positive impact of green spaces on residents’ daily lives, Palermo is recently experiencing a crisis of public green spaces, caused by austerity measures and the lack of financial resources for local administrations and their social infrastructure policies. The unequal distribution of easily accessible green spaces in the city mainly affects the economically weaker groups with a considerable disparity between neighbourhoods and the resulting dynamics of exclusion. Urban policies and consumption-driven regeneration processes concentrate resources and funding mainly on specific central spaces, to the detriment of peripheral areas that remain on the margins. In this context, this paper investigates possible solutions to address these challenges and support a participatory model of urban governance. The research project relies on a qualitative methodology largely based on intensive fieldwork, participant observation, a collection of mental maps, participatory practices and in-depth interviews. With this methodological approach, the project addresses two main questions: 1) How do urban policies involve Palermo's neighbourhoods by differentially excluding or including their public spaces? 2) How can the material organisation and the perception of a public green space shape social interactions? To address these topics, this contribution will explore an example of a model of shared and inclusive management of public spaces in Palermo: Parco Uditore, a successful story of reclaiming spaces not intended for public use and turning them into powerful social infrastructures. Moreover, through the analysis of this experience, the contribution will reflect on the effects of an accessible public space on the neighbourhood and its inhabitants. On the one hand, we will observe how austerity policies affect neighbourhoods unevenly. On the other, we will highlight the exemplarity of a neighbourhood capable of catalysing its social capital into effective public space projects.

This contribution focuses on an urban public park in order to explore empirically the intersections of urban natures and cultures in relation to segregation processes. Le Cascine, the biggest park of Florence, Italy, has recently attracted ample attention in public debates characterized by two interrelated arguments promoted by local political and cultural stakeholders: On the one hand, informal and illegal activities, criminality, decay, and the imperative necessity of requalification become dominant elements of stratified discourses that have produced the park’s stigmatisation. On the other, the same stakeholders provide responses to this stigmatisation through an imaginary centred on the park’s “natural” value towards a sustainable future of a city that needs to finally deal with the climate crisis.

Suggesting a processual rather than static view on the segregation of urban public spaces, and based on ongoing qualitative and in-situ arts-based geographic research, the latter taking the form of public geography, our analysis approaches Le Cascine as a spatiality that is intertwined with segregation processes: How does the park allow us to rethink of segregation in terms of socio-economically advantaged groups expansion rather than seclusion? Which is the role of culture in its intersection with urban nature in a contested public space? And how does an urban public space commonly perceived as segregated become the active terrain of socio-spatial processes that might result in novel segregation patterns?

A critical reading of a selection of both top-down and bottom-up activities as forms of re-appropriation by the affluent urban populations, and exercises of control over diversity and informality, together with in-depth interviews and performative geographic experimentations, provide answers to our questions. Precisely, the gradual insertion of formal cultural activities into the urban green in question might result in a “soft expansion” of the socio-economically advantaged groups of Florence’s urban public space, and particularly green space. Nevertheless, this cultural expansion, however “soft”, intervenes onto the ordinary uses of the park by underprivileged and racialized populations, rendering it a contentious space. In an apparently homogeneous and pacified urban context, we read Le Cascine park as a public space where conflictual and exclusionary dynamics become evident.

Public spaces in Ulaanbaatar face unprecedented pressures due to rapid urbanization, climate change, and socio-economic change. In line with this, ambitious policies were set under the Green Development Policy and the Ulaanbaatar 2020 Master Plan, but the quantity of green space per capita still remains at a critically low level: 0.12-5 m² per person, against global recommendations. Challenges include weak policy implementation, fragmented institutional responsibilities, and limited financial resources. Moreover, informal settlements and chaotic urban expansion further complicate efforts to secure and enhance urban public spaces. The present study has critically assessed policy and institutional barriers impeding the development of public space in Ulaanbaatar. Critical document analysis and interviews with key stakeholders revealed four major issues: poor action plans, inadequate coordination of stakeholders, financial problems, and the failure to establish any kind of sustainable urban planning framework. As potential solutions, we evaluate the city’s capacity to increase green spaces through innovative interventions. These include converting neglected public spaces into pocket gardens, redeveloping school and kindergarten yards, utilizing university and educational institution campuses for greening, and adopting green parking lot designs. Additionally, integrating green space creation into ger area redevelopment and reallocating underutilized land are explored as ways to increase urban greenery. Preliminary calculations reveal the significant potential of these measures to boost per capita green space, contributing to Ulaanbaatar’s sustainability goals and improving residents' quality of life.

In recent years insecurity issues and the ‘fear of crime’ have become central concerns among analysts and policy-makers, due to the growth of perceived unsafety in different social groups and especially in vulnerable people. To approximate a realistic representation of demands for institutional intervention, it’s essential to document and analyse determining factors and particular profiles behind people’s preoccupations. The paper aims to mention data coming from international surveys (ESS and EQLS-Eurofound) to illustrate connections between sense of insecurity and territorially contextualised dimensions of life. For some vulnerable segments of society, the perception of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods appears crucial, which may be contrasted by social interventions aimed at the community.

On the other side, there’s need to deem what’s happening in EU Member States, where homeless’ situation goes on worsening. Usually described by epidemiological/pathological approaches, ‘people in the streets’ are considered as a threat for public order, neglecting spatial practices and mechanisms of reproduction of urban marginalities. Public sphere is the real and only place in which they can (and want at last) live, but they are continuously removed or even cancelled by ‘dark design’ and ‘hostile architecture’, because public spaces aren’t made for exhibition of vulnerable and defiant persons. So homeless people (traditionally coming from abroad: which means cumulative stigma) are really forced into constant motion, even if they have nowhere to go: they dramatically seem not to have any right to space. Are some measures planned in NextGeneration-Italy (for example ‘Stazioni di posta’) going to change homelessness situation combining institutional action with civil society efforts?

Some biblio references:

Allik M., Kearns A. (2017), ‘There goes the fear’. Feelings of safety at home and in the neighbourhood: the role of personal, social and service factors. Journal of Community Psychology, 45, n.4

Doucette-Préville, J.P. (2017), The challenge of homelessness to spatial practices. OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development 8

Jabareen Y., Eizenberg E., Zilberman O. (2017), Conceptualizing urban ontological security: ‘Being-in-the-city’ and its social and spatial dimensions. Cities, 68

Mc Carthy, L. (2018). (Re)conceptualising the boundaries between home and homelessness: the unheimlich. Housing Studies 33(6)

Zavattaro S. (2019), Using Feminist Geography to Understand Feelings of Safety and Neighborhood Image. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, 42, n.2