The Heat Island as a Result and Cause of Environmental and Social Degradation: Two Different Settlements in the Town of Afragola of the Metropolitan City of Naples

The Salicelle District is one of the interventions carried out under emergency conditions as part of the extraordinary plan for the earthquake that struck Campania in November 1980, producing nearly 300,000 homeless. Built entirely between 1982 and 1993, the Salicelle District is located in the municipality of Afragola in the north area of Naples, connected to the metropolitan city through the Median Axis that crosses the entire northern periphery in an east-west direction. The district was built for 7000 inhabitants in apartments of different sizes according to the urban planning standards of the time, but in reality, the accommodations are currently overpopulated, and many rooms located on the street level, originally intended for commercial activities, have been illegally occupied and used as dwellings. Under these conditions, today the total number of inhabitants is unspecified, approximately estimated at around 9000 occupants in fact. The buildings for the houses are of the court and in line type; the urban layout is structured around a central core consisting of three squares, the parish complex, the market, the middle and elementary school, the nursery, the urban park, the post office, the social centre and the market; some of these activities, such as asylum and the market, are not functioning, while the social centre has been replaced by a polyclinic to deal with the serious health shortage of the neighbourhood.