From micro-strategies to soft policies. Situated processes of regeneration in the historic center of Naples

Despite the fall of urban Renaissance and the resulting decline, ever since 2000 Naples has been experiencing the implementation of virtuous self-managed routine works by citizens, as a collective response to the symbolic turning point deriving from the 90’s cultural strategies to govern the city. As time goes by, the different practices of civic reaction are becoming a habit – by ordinary people – of taking care about churches, squares, public parks and underused open spaces, neglected gardens and buildings, etc. This particular kind of care for public spaces, usually managed through interim uses, is often directed by self-organized groups coming from associations and civil society, by dialoguing with local institutions that consent (or at least don’t block) such practices. Due to the present economic and financial crisis, the consequent fragile cooperation between public and private actors in this sort of social control of common areas, and despite the weakness and the questionability of this formula, continues germinating alternative ways to care about those urban commons, that otherwise would be at the risk of being completely neglected.