“MICI DE OAIE” OR “COSTESINE E POENTA”?: THE USE OF URBAN PUBLIC GREEN SPACE BY NEW AND OLD RESIDENTS. THREE ITALIAN CASE STUDIES

Abstract

Private space using, building and adapting are strongly influenced by the culture of its residents, who define the meaning and the function of the private space they live in. In each culture, private space conception influences public space perception, meant as both a continuation of the private one and a place where to socialise. Therefore the process leading to the definition of the public space is highly complex and involves many actors, and it might be source of potential conflict. Often, the use and the function of the public space facing houses is determined by the residents, sometimes generating ethnic neighbourhoods where also the commercial activities have a strong ethnic connotation, the so-called ethnic business (Papotti et al., 2004). On the other side, more widely-used public space is often functionalised by the predominant community; in some cases, for instance when the use made by a minority contrasts with the use made by the predominant community, a potential conflicting situation can occur. Northern-European urban parks are indeed a good example of widely-used public space. They are characterised by a promotion of the reciprocity and the integration among users, and they can represent a testing ground to try to overcome the assimilation model or the ghettoisation. The experience of such parks is new in the Italian urban context, where urban parks are often characterised by conflicting situation. Italian urban parks might represent a case study to unveil the daily social dynamics occurring between people with very different cultural backgrounds (e.g. citizens and immigrants) exploiting the same public space.