Urban Informality in Italy

The topic of urban informality has been widely discussed in academic literature relating to Global South Theory. Discourse on urban informality however has been mostly skewed toward the Global South due to a myth that informality only occurs in developing countries. To debunk this myth and look at more nuanced definitions of urban informality that are based on academic publishments by Anyana Roy, this study looks at the phenomenon of informal building practices in Italy (known in Italian as abusivismo edilizio), which are dominated by the construction of unauthorised houses which bypass formal building regulations. The objective of this study has been first to use an empirical discourse analysis of a variety of documents to identify how urban informality is perceived by the socio-political environment in the country to understand what are the factors that have facilitated the normalisation and rationalisation of the practice of abusivismo within Italy. The second objective of the study has been to understand what is the State action on unauthorised housing, how are unauthorised homes flagged and condemned, but also how and how often they are regularised. The main findings of the study have shown that there is an overall negative and criminalised perception of informal building practices expressed in Italy in the socio-public discourse, but these critical perceptions are not directed towards a logic of ‘building out of a need for shelter’ but rather, out of the individual’s exploitation of deregulations in the system to build second and more luxurious homes in a more financially convenient manner. Secondly, unauthorised building practices have been facilitated thanks to poor administrative governance on behalf of the state, and a cyclical pattern of ‘washing away’ responsibilities through the extensive use of building amnesties which have caused a major loss in credibility in the State. Other factors that have contributed to the facilitation of unauthorised building practices have been the influence of mafia-type organisations, particularly in the Southern regions of Italy. The analysis has shown that the logic that drives the rationalisation of unauthorised building practices is that it is more convenient for the individual to take the risk of cutting financial costs by building informally because it lacks the credibility that the State will inherently do something to sanction it. Informal building practices in Italy were not synonymous with poverty, nor were they driven by a lack of regulations. Instead, it was a condition of deregulation and poor administrative governance that led to the widespread normalisation and rationalisation of Italian abusivismo edilizio.