Urban Informality: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

✍ Scribed by Maria Vittoria Ferroni (editor), Rossana Galdini (editor), Giovanni Ruocco (editor)

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 136
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book analyzes the informal practices of contemporary cities through a close dialogue between different research perspectives, with the shared goal of giving voice to informality and evaluating its benefits and potential in a multidimensional key of social factors.

Recently, the human sciences have seen the emergence of this new term “informality,” at first sight in conflict with their function of giving order and form to social phenomena. A term with which, in this book, the authors, having as reference the Italian and European experience, specifically identify those unsatisfied social demands and those collective actions “from below” that aim at the recovery of urban space and the renewal of its organization, often not following the trajectories of legality and institutions. By means of a close dialogue between different areas of social research, this book attempts to establish the different declinations and applications of the term, evaluating the causes and effects, benefits, and potential of the phenomena attributable to it, within a multidimensional analysis that calls into question the regeneration and collective use of spaces, political-institutional confrontation and conflict, legal innovation, and social-economic benefits.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Informality: A Difficult Qualification
Informality and Evolution of Urban Space
1 Introduction
2 The Concept of Urban Informality
3 Origins and Evolution of Urban Informality
4 The Main Theoretical Approaches
5 Informality and Urban Space
6 Perspectives on the Informal
Bibliographical References
Collective Action, Urban Spaces, and Common Goods: The Concept of Informality from a Sociological Perspective
1 Why Discuss Informality?
2 Sociology and an Informal Economy
3 Informality as an Analytical Category: Informal Ties, Social Movements and Direct Social Action
4 Informal Cities, Common Goods, and Participation
5 Concluding Reflections
Bibliographical References
Informality and Democratic Innovation: The Urban Political Laboratory
1 Informality, Instructions for Use
2 Informality as a Social Practice
3 Democracies in Transformation
4 Conclusions
Bibliographical References
The Legal Value of Informality for the General Interest: The Example of Cities
1 Informality in Law
2 Examples and Models of Conciliation Between Informality and Formal Law
2.1 The Tolerance Model
2.2 The Recognition Model
2.3 The Innovative Legal Qualification Model
2.4 The Collaboration Agreements Model
2.5 The Re-use of Goods in Transition
3 The Unifying Contribution Offered by the Principle of Horizontal Subsidiarity
4 The Legal Space of Cities
5 The Risks of Informality
Bibliographical References
The Re-use of Assets Confiscated from Organized Crime: How to Make the Informal Formal
1 Premise. Assets Confiscated from the Mafia as Common Goods. The Potential of Informality
2 The Evolution of the Discipline of Confiscation of Assets from the Mafia
3 The Re-use of Assets in Transition as a Model of Informality: The Phase of Temporary Assignment
4 The Destination Phase of Definitively Confiscated Assets: The Role of Informality
Bibliographical References
The Role of “Intangible Factors” for Local Development: Policy Implications and Preliminary Indicators for Evaluation
1 Introduction
2 The Role of Intangible Factors in Economic Theory
3 The Role of Intangible Factors in the Dynamics of Sustainable Local Development
4 Policy Implications of Local Development
5 Preliminary Indicators for Impact Evaluation
5.1 Active Citizenship
5.2 Partnership Representation
5.3 Integrated Processes
5.4 Sustainability
Bibliographical References
Urban Regeneration and Informal City in the European Framework
1 Urban Regeneration and Informal City
2 The Notion of “Informal City”
3 The Collaboration of Citizens
4 The Relation Between Formality and Informality
4.1 The Criticalities of Informal Initiatives
5 The Role of Participation
5.1 The Common Elements of the “New” Forms of Participation
5.2 The Democratic Nature of Informal Measures
5.3 The Synergy Between Public Decision Makers and Citizens
6 The Continuity Between Formality and Informality
7 Concluding Remarks
Bibliographical References
Historicizing Urban Informality: An Opportunity to Rethink the Study of the Contemporary City
1 Defining the Urban
2 Beyond the “Dual City” Paradigm
3 Political Practices
4 The Italian Case
5 Representations, Materiality, Actors
Bibliographical References
Informality as a Way of Living in the City: The Point of View of Urban Practices to Rethink the Categories of Urban Governance
1 Discussing Informality Starting from Urban Practices
2 “Formal” and “Informal” City
3 Discussing Legality and Illegality
4 Positivity and Ambiguity: Discerning Urban Practices and Informality
5 Informality, Self-organization, and Cultures of the Public
6 Informal Does Not Mean “Small” or “Local”: The Horizon of Urban Policies
7 The Problems and Perspectives of Regulating Informality
8 Re-politicizing Urban Life
Bibliographical References