The De Gasperi Neighbourhood, Naples

Francesco Chiodelli, University of Turin
Emiliano Esposito, University of Naples Federico II

Naples is a city characterised by deep social and economic fractures, which are reflected in its urban fabric and, in particular, in its extremely problematic housing system. Naples’ long-term housing crisis is historically rooted in the destruction caused by aerial bombings during World War II and the 1980 earthquake. The state’s response to these two events was the creation of several public housing neighbourhoods, comprising more than 50,000 dwelling units, mainly located in former independent rural municipalities in the north and east of Naples, such as Scampia and Ponticelli. The building of public real estate deeply perturbed the urban fabric and social landscape of such places, which suddenly went from being small rural settlements to massive public housing neighbourhoods. This led to the concentration and segregation of thousands of poor households. In the 1980s and 1990s, several of these neighbourhood rapidly turned into a metaphor for deprivation, poverty, stigmatization and crime in the Italian public discourse. This is epitomized by the case of the infamous Scampia neighbourhood, where a huge block of buildings called Vele [Sails] has emerged as the largest drug dealing centre in Europe, managed by the Camorra (a powerful mafia-type criminal organization originating in the Campania region), thus symbolizing the failure of public housing in Naples. 

The public discourse on public housing neighbourhoods in Naples is oversimplistic and stigmatising. On the one side, it hides the political and policy responsibilities underpinning the (public) housing crisis in Naples. On the other hand, it obscures the positive energies that often proliferate in these places. Nevertheless, this discourse stems from a reality made up in many cases of extreme social hardship, poverty and marginalisation. The case of the De Gasperi neighbourhood is a striking example. The De Gasperi neighbourhood, in the Ponticelli area, eastern Naples, consists entirely of public housing. The neighbourhood was one of the first public housing complexes built in post-war Naples: it was erected between 1952 and 1954, and comprises 28 apartment buildings totalling 656 housing units. According to a recent council survey, illegal occupants made up 50% of its total inhabitants. Today, the neighbourhood is characterized by notably low urban quality: public spaces, like gardens and squares, have been abandoned; buildings are crumbling and subject to water infiltration and breakdowns; apartments are overcrowded; public services, like sports or recreational facilities, and private businesses, like bars, shops and restaurants, are non-existent. In addition, the De Gasperi neighbourhood was historically ruled by members of the Camorra, which − taking advantage of rising housing needs unanswered by public authorities − managed the occupation and the allocation of public housing within the neighbourhood (mafia boss Ciro Sarno was called ‘O Sindaco’ [The Mayor] in the 1980s for this reason). It was only in the first decade of the twenty-first century that the Camorra clan’s hold over the area ceased. 

However, the end of the Camorra’s hold over the area did not stop the proliferation of illegal housing practices. Today, these continue to be commonplace. They have become a sort of widespread social practice, taking different forms: the occupation by force of empty public flats, the illegal sale or renting of public housing units on behalf of the legitimate beneficiary (in several case, the illegal trading is later legalised, taking advantage of loopholes in the law on hereditary transfer of the right to occupy a public dwelling unit; this practice is the so-called ‘fraudulent takeover’); the occupation of non-residential spaces (e.g. the neighbourhood primary school) and their subsequent conversion into dwelling units. These practices of illegal access to housing are deeply embedded in the local environment and in informal rules, practices, opportunities, and constraints set by a close-knit network of local inhabitants. Personal relations and bonds among relatives, neighbours and friends guarantee the amount of trust required, for instance, to activate the informal housing market in the neighbourhood and to ensure compliance with informal sale or lease agreements. The same close-knit local network of local residents is also fundamental in the day-to-day life of the squatters: for instance, it allows them to share information about empty flats to be occupied and provides material support for housing relocation, renovation and legalisation, while relations of mutual care help satisfy broader social needs, both material and immaterial. Wide acceptance of illegal occupations derives from how embedded squatters are in the local community and contributes to the camouflage strategy they adopt; they prefer to remain invisible and mingle with regular inhabitants, rather than collectively and publicly claim their squatting action in the face of public authorities.

The roots of these illegal residential practices are manifold, but they cannot be decontextualised from the framework of a structural crisis of the Italian housing system (a crisis to which they constitute the self-organised response). This crisis is also the result of Italian public policies which, since the Second World War, have focused mainly on favouring access to home ownership, and have dedicated little attention to the rental sector. Moreover, Italian housing policies for low-income households have never been able to respond effectively to their housing needs: they have focused essentially on the supply of public dwelling units, but demand has always been far higher than supply, so today, while around 750,000 households benefited from public housing in 2015 (around 5.5% of the national population), there are still 650,000 households on the waiting list for a public dwelling unit; among the latter are many of the almost 50,000 households occupying public housing units in Italy today.

Against the background of these illegal housing practices in the De Gasperi neighbourhood, a policy of informal and precarious dwelling emerges, and it is one which is made up of two opposing movements. On the one side, a sort of ‘micropolitics of prospective hope’ gushes from residents’ practices. It is generated by a myriad of mundane and ordinary actions of appropriation, care, negotiation, integration, self-organisation, opposition, and violation. Despite not resulting in any traditional political action or subjectivity, this micropolitics tangibly re-shapes the concept of accessing and using public assets in creative and adaptive directions while, at the same time, building a perception of squatters which contrasts the dominant (reactionary and stigmatising) public discourse. On the other side, there is a sort of ‘politics of exploitative enduring neglection’ clearly related to informal and precarious dwelling practices in public housing neighbourhoods in Naples, which is promoted by public bodies and players. Informal housing practices are tolerated by political and bureaucratic players for mere reasons of convenience, such as creating a ‘vote bank’ among squatters or avoiding the eruption of social problems that public authorities do not want (and would not know how) to manage. The result is an inferior and precarious status of urban citizenship for the inhabitants of these areas, who are chained to an enduring condition of despair created by such a public approach.