Measuring social poverty for concrete regeneration of suburbs: the Neapolitan case of San Giovanni a Teduccio

Abstract

This paper focusses on the 6th Municipality of Naples and in particular on the neighborhood "San Giovanni a Teduccio". We use quantitative indices to measure social disease and inequalities, as well as indices to describe the sociodemographic history of this neighborhood. Methodologically, we compare the values of few population-based and socio-demographic indices provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) for San Giovanni a Teduccio, for the entire Napolitan metropolitan area and, when available, of the entire Italy. The index of social disease (ISD) for San Giovanni a Teduccio in 2011 was 21.16%, one of the highest of the entire Italian territory. This demonstrates that the inhabitants were living in a really uncomfortable situation, specifically due to a high unemployment rate, especially affecting uneducated young people. This motivated and engaged the community, as well as the University of Naples Federico II, to undertake bottom-up territorial regeneration and social innovation actions, which are briefly described in the paper. Although the data and statistical analysis presented are far from being exhaustive and unfortunately cannot yet map the results of these actions, they highlight the need for a deep reflection. Hence in the conclusions, we invite to consider an approach which is much more people-oriented and starts from the bottom. In fact, concrete urban regeneration cannot be achieved without their social regeneration. Only real listening to the local community, the prefiguration of possible microactions of territorial regeneration but, above all, the activation of a shared and democratic decision-making process can lead to real territorial development.