A Long and Winding Road. Peripheries in a Medium Sized City of Southern Italy

Contemporary cities are often the outcome of an aggregation of different parts grown in an informal way. In these systems sometimes the expression ‘periphery’ looses its original meaning of outwards bounds distinguished from the centre (De Carlo 1993). The same happens in Catania, a medium size city of southern Italy where marginal neighbourhoods mix with richer and more vital ones. This is particularly true in transition areas between the main municipality and the surrounding towns. However, here another occurrence parallels this one, the presence of large historic neighbourhoods characterised by economic, social and functional marginalization. All these areas represent a highly heterogynous set characterised by its strong resistance to change both from physical and social points of view, in spite of the specific actions for upgrading them. The reasons of these resistances are, as usual, diverse and complex. This paper presents a set of results that are emerging from an ongoing research on Catania metropolitan area that can contribute to the general understanding of similar problems in medium sized western cites.

Le periferie dell’area metropolitana catanese sono analizzate a partire da uno studio dei dati censuari disponibili condotto con l’uso del Gis. Dallo studio effettuato emerge una prima classificazione di questi insediamenti che appaiono particolarmente eterogenei.