The Città Abusiva in Contemporary Southern Italy: Illegal Building and Prospects for Change

Abstract

This study returns to the topic of unauthorised development in the south of Italy. It starts by assessing the main positions that have informed the debate since the 1960s and evaluates the consequences of the condono edilizio (building amnesty) policy, in the light of the impact that illegal construction has had on the landscape, both urban, rural and coastal. A close observation of three case studies, unplanned settlements in Lazio, Campania and Sicily, suggests that the original energies and expectations behind their development have long since lost their momentum. Rather, the emergence of new evolutionary trends—hitherto underrepresented within the political debate—demand a different interpretative framework. Three design scenarios are outlined, based on recycling existing social and physical material: they translate into a future-oriented discourse those symptoms of change that are already appearing in an embryonic form throughout Italy’s Mezzogiorno.