Quartieri privati: stato dell'arte e prospettive di ricerca

Abstract

In recent decades there has been an increasing spread of collective ownership housing: associations or residential communities, private neighborhoods, homeowners associations. Residents of the same neighborhood share spaces and services, ensured by an elective administration and internal revenue for the management. The article aims to provide a framework about this subject. The characteristics of this private form of urbanization will be outlined looking at favorable and adverse arguments. It will show how, in spite of advantages related to an efficient service provision, the spread of private neighborhoods singles out the idea of the city to pursue and involves social costs in terms of segregation and urban fragmentation. This subject, as yet little studied in Italy, can highlight dynamics and processes at work in contemporary cities.