Urban Informality

Maria Vittoria Ferroni is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she teaches Administrative Law. Since 2013, she is Member of the Doctoral Board of Public, Comparative and International Law. Since 2016, she is Coordinator of the Environmental Law Observatory of giustamm.it and Member of the Italian Association of Urban Planning Law (AIDU). Since 2019, she coordinates the multidisciplinary research group cities in transition, urban regeneration, civic engagement, and institutions at the origin of this book. Rossana Galdini is Associate Professor of Sociology of Environment and Territory at the Department of Social and Economic Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome, where she teaches Urban Sociology and Sociology of Environment and Territory. Her main research fields are concerned with the city as a mix of social dynamics, architectural forms, and productive structures. She is Member of the DoctoralSchool of Applied Social Sciences at Sapienza University.  She is Author and Co-author of several national and international articles and publications. She coordinates the interdisciplinary research: “Towards a new culture-centered city. Strategies and practices for a high quality urban sustainable development”. Giovanni Ruocco is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Sciences of Sapienza University of Rome, where he teaches Political Thought of Colonisation and Decolonisation and Democracy and Critique of Contemporary Societies. He is Member of the Board of Doctorate in Political Studies. He studies the political thought of the modern and contemporary age, with particular attention to conceptual problems, the doctrines of races and racism, and reflection on the forms of democratic participation. With other colleagues, he published three volumes on the idea of the people in the history of modern and contemporary thought and is preparing the fourth.

• Informality: a difficult qualification.- Informality and evolution of the urban space.- Collective action, urban spaces, and common goods: the concept of informality from a sociological perspective.- Informality and democratic innovation: the urban political laboratory.- The legal value of informality for the general interest. The example of cities.- The reuse of assets confiscated from organized crime: how to make the informal formal.- The role of “intangible factors” for local development: policy indications and initial evaluation indicators.- Urban regeneration and informal city in the European framework.- Historicizing urban informality. An opportunity to rethink the study of the contemporary city.- Informality as a way of living in the city. The point of view of urban practices to rethink the categories of urban governance.