Turning urban fragilities into resources for a just climate governance

Experimental governance approaches to climate can be useful for cities at the margins of neoliberalization processes, where the public sector hardly implement climate policies and active citizens are not fully ready to combat climate change. We present empirical research combining a Kevin Lynch’s image survey with a policy analysis approach. Starting from the case of peripheral Naples we argue that under a southern perspective urban fragilities can be turned into resources for innovating the climate governance towards community-based adaptation pathways. This opportunity emerges when responses to climate change replace the lacking technical knowledge and the administrative failures with the richness of social infrastructure and promote transformation as liberation addressing root causes of vulnerability and social justice demands. The contribution argues that a plurality of actors can be involved in transformations through experimental governance approaches, where a trial-and-error methodology tests how to govern the city.