Tuff City: Urban Change and Contested Space in Central Naples

During the 1990s, Naples' left-wing administration sought to tackle the city's infamous reputation of being poor, crime-ridden, chaotic and dirty by reclaiming the city's cultural and architectural heritage. This book examines the conflicts surrounding the reimaging and reordering of the city's historic centre through detailed case studies of two piazzas and a centro sociale, focusing on a series of issues that include heritage, decorum, security, pedestrianization, tourism, immigration and new forms of urban protest. This monograph is the first in-depth study of the complex transformations of one of Europe's most fascinating and misunderstood cities. It represents a new critical approach to the questions of public space, citizenship and urban regeneration as well as a broader methodological critique of how we write about contemporary cities.

Chapter 6 -- From Royal Courtyard to Car ParkChapter 7 -- The Regeneration of Piazza Plebiscito; Chapter 8 -- Sous les Paves, la Place!: An Ethnography of the New Piazza Plebiscito; Chapter 9 -- Exit Piazza Plebiscito: Rethinking 'Civic' Space; Part 3 -- Deprovincializing Urban Regeneration: Piazza Garibaldi and Immigration during the Bassolino Era; Chapter 10 -- Enter the Station Piazza; Chapter 11 -- Antechamber to the Southern Italian Capital (1860-1994); Chapter 12 -- Piazza Garibaldi as an Unregenerate Space (1994-2001); Chapter 13 -- Mapping Immigrant Experiences In and Of Piazza Garibaldi.