Urban Versus Rural: Migrants and Housing Issue in Euro-Mediterranean Contexts

Abstract

This chapter reinterprets the phenomena of the territorial and spatial distribution of migrants in Italy, attempting to reason about the settlement dynamics that characterise them (particularly with reference to the main Italian metropolitan cities). From this point of view, the research highlights how the main forms of immigrant concentration are recorded mainly in strongly monocentric metropolitan cities, such as Turin, Milan and Palermo. On the other hand, the distribution of migrants in small and medium towns close to large cities is mainly recorded in the most articulated and complex metropolitan cities, such as Rome and Naples. Finally, a significant territorial dispersion of the foreign population with respect to large cities corresponds to polycentric metropolitan cities, especially Florence and Venice, traditionally characterised by a strong specialisation of local economies. In these contexts, the foreign population is distributed outside the major centres, being engaged in specialised work activities, variously distributed over the territory. With respect to these conditions, the strictly urban dimension nevertheless shows its limits with respect to a phenomenon, such as migration, that tends to disperse over the territory. In these contexts, the territorial distribution of the foreign population also reveals unprecedented forms of “rootedness” that highlight clear divergences from the traditional urban contexts of analysis. A specific focus concerns the case of Sicily, where quantitative distributional issues are confronted in particular with the qualitative housing dimension in urban and rural areas, and where aspects of the ethical responsibilities of planning instruments are explored.