Controversial multi-actor urban regeneration practices : the case of the historic centre of Palermo

In recent decades, Sicily has been experiencing late forms of cosmopolitanism. These include the outcomes of migrant flows and the internationalisation processes of cities, especially Palermo. In fact, more than 70 per cent of the province’s immigrants live in the Sicilian capital. The ISTAT data on the resident population in Palermo show how, in 2021, the presence of foreign citizens amounted to 24,376 (+24.1% compared to 2011), out of a total popula- tion of 635,439 inhabitants (655,875 compared to 2011), with an incidence, therefore, of 3.8%. Analysing the distribution in the districts, if, in terms of absolute values, the distri- bution of foreigners affects at least four different districts (First, Third, Fifth and Eighth), in percentage terms with respect to the total population, foreigners are concentrated in the First District, coinciding with the historic centre, with an incidence of 18.7% (Fig. 1). This means that, compared to the recent past, although there has been a substantial shift of the foreign population to other parts of the city, the historic centre is characterised by a clear concentration of foreigners with respect to the total population. Over the last thirty years, Palermo’s historic centre has undergone a profound (yet incom- plete) process of urban regeneration that has taken the city from being a Mafia enclave in the western world to an international cosmopolitan city. Even in the 1990s, the state of neglect by public institutions of the historic centre made this part of the city a ‘no man’s land’, amid the rubble of World War II bombings and the direct control of (micro and mac- ro) organised crime. This condition made the fabric of the historic centre, abandoned by local citizens, and particularly accessible to the migrant population mainly from North Africa. In the local chronicles, this phenomenon was trivially interpreted as ‘the return of the Moors to the centre more than 800 years after their expulsion’. In reality, it marked a slow but pervasive process of ethnic micro-colouration that over time allowed not only the recovery, but also the socio-economic revitalisation of entire segments of this urban fabric. In parallel to the bottom-up revitalisation by migrants, a widespread process of redevel- opment tended to be driven by the rehabilitation of individual buildings and partly by the action of the public administration (significant was the redevelopment and reopen- ing to the public in 1997, after 23 years of closure of the Massimo theatre, on the wave of a mobilisation that saw public institutions and civil society working together). Over the next 20 years, this process brought the Palermo’s citizens back to live in the histor- ic centre, with an evident gentrification that affected, in particular, two of the four districts (Kalsa and Monte di Pietà). This process has reactivated the real estate market and, at the same time, the interests of the commercial fabric, initiating a tourism push that first saw the start-up of countless tourist accommodation activities (hotels, but above all b&b), and then the opening of tourist and low-quality fast-food restaurants. This happened above all along the central axes of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Maqueda, which after Covid (also thanks to the concessions linked to the economic recovery, such as the facilitation of the use of public land) completely changed their faces. Even the historical markets have been overwhelmed by this phenomenon, becoming tourist routes. Compared to these condi- tions, however, the socio-economic and spatial dynamics at work do not always manage to find a stable balance. In fact, in the innermost areas of the districts, those far from the main road axes, bottom-up practices of urban regeneration are cultivated, generally con- ducted by local associations, active citizenship, which includes the participation of resident migrants, who contribute to the maintenance of another image of the historic centre more directly linked to the communities present. In the light of these considerations, therefore, Palermo’s historic centre is configured as a crucial centre around which gravitate different and sometimes conflicting interests, promoted by a multiplicity of actors (public, private, mixed), which act autonomously in the absence of effective coordination by the public administration. The outcomes of this process appear uncertain at the moment, but at the same time it give cause for concern, particularly with reference to the risk of strong touristi- fication, which would lead to the expulsion of the migrant population and the interruption of the local population’s resettlement process, as well as that of the progressive compro- mise of the heritage of historical and architectural interest.