The Agency of Socially Mixed Neighbourhoods: Insights from the Historic Centre of Naples

In a city like Naples, the concept of neighbourhood is continuously negotiated and redefined through everyday practices of urban interaction and through the existence of multiple forms of social capital that animate daily life. In the historical centre of Naples the negotiation of the neighbourhoods is influenced by the coexistence and close proximity of different social groups of inhabitants, which compels us to think about the significance of the ‘agency of place’ and about how social difference defines the neighbourhood itself. The diverse housing situations and economic activities shape the characteristics of these central neighbourhoods that, crucially, are not captured in formal, administrative definitions of the city’s districts. Through the case of the Condominio Sociale di via S. Nicola a Nilo, a city council housing policy to build a socially- inclusive block of flats, this article discusses how the coexistence of various inhabitants, social networks and spatial relationships represent a fundamental feature of the concept of neighbourhood in Naples. In doing so, the article points to the importance of the ‘agency of place’ and the maintenance of social heterogeneity as key to inclusive urban policies.