Urban Regionalisation Processes : Governance of Post-Urban Phenomena in Sicily

Abstract

The critical reflection on modern cities, that continued through the 20th century, has fed a wide- ranging and controversial debate within urban studies. The theoretical category of “urban” as a spatial, social product as well as being an economic and political one, has changed via new settlement principles, an expression of “new forms of cities” and also of new “city demand”, and of the various use practices that produce and are produced in these new territories. This book tries to answer the questions on transformation phenomena of urban dimension (regionalization processes), for which the interpretations provided in reference literature are not totally convincing. In fact, traditional references leave no room for different points of view, and refer to a widespread dominant perspective that we don’t believe restores the post-modern complexity of urban space to a sufficient degree. The research, of which this book publishes the results, has addressed this topic, identifying a taxonomy to describe the rules of this new, particular “city” but using the living dimension as a device for the epistemological breaking down of traditional socio- spatial analysis models. In relation to these fields of observation, therefore, we have attempted to explain the convergences and divergences, the agreements and disagreements in order to contribute to the wealth of critical reflection on urban space with a view to a different and not standardised interpretation.Research results portray a story that is balanced between the “concrete abstraction” (Brenner, 2016) of the new urban dimension, and the “marginality” of a unique, new territorial reality, such is Sicily, that can question the theoretical reference models.