- A long and winding Road towards Integration    1430 kb by    La Greca, Paolo & Martinico, Francesco & Occhipinti, Sara | plagreca@dau.unict.it    Short Outline Urban peripheries often represent a central problem in cities of developed countries. A case study from a medium city of one of the Italian lagging regions can supply elements to improve the capacity to cope with this relevant issue. Abstract Urban peripheries of Italian cities are characterized by a large variety of conditions. Even if social tensions are not reaching the same level of other European countries, like France, a considerable level of pressure simmers under the ashes of the long and convoluted process of formation of urban peripheries. In many of the major Italian cities, the wide range of differences in physical and social qualities is due to many factors, including the process of formation of social housing schemes and the weak role played by planning practices in the early years after the end of the second world war. In the major cities of southern regions some specificities emerged including the role played by illegal housing and the greater economic marginality. Recently, a panoply of new policies has attempted to improve these conditions. These actions are mainly conceived accordingly to recent trends, that propose a strict integration of physical, social and economic measures. However, their implementation show some difficulties in evolving from more traditional urban remediation actions aimed at improving physical elements to effective forms of integration of different measures. The paper starting from a brief overview of the main problems related to the formation and the actual status of marginal urban neighbourhoods in Italy presents the case of Catania a medium sized city in Sicily where the role played by social housing schemes appears intertwined with older problems related to the formation of historical neighbourhoods. In particular, two districts have been analysed in detail. The first one is a part of the downtown area with major problem related to high levels of social marginality and criminality. The second one is one of the largest social housing schemes in Italy, planned for about 70,000 inhabitants, designed according to shared principles of modern planning movement, but that nowadays suffer from major social problems. The analysis of than case study supplies useful elements for defining strategies aimed at a better integration of urban peripheries. Keywords Urban Periferies Integration policies Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2006: Cities between Integration and Disintegration   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper