Abandonment as a Social Fact: The Problem of Unused and Unmaintained Private Buildings in a Neo-Institutional Perspective

ISBN-13: 9783030903664 / Angielski / Miękka / 2021 / 96 str.

Anita De Franco

Opis

This book provides a multidisciplinary approach for the study of the “abandonment” problem at the inter-section among urban studies, neo-institutionalist perspectives, and social ontology. An analytical framework (based on descriptive and operational issues, factors, reasons, policies) has been built to interpret the phenomenon of abandonment and possible ways of intervening. The work considers the Italian situation in general terms and examines the case study of Milan in depth. This case is interesting because it triggered public discussions on the problem of abandonment in a non-shrinking context. Moreover, recently, specific policies to cope with abandonment problem have been introduced.The purpose of the book is to show that the problem of the “abandonment” of urban buildings should be understood as a social fact and not as a brute fact. Thus, in this work the “abandoned” state of buildings is considered as not directly related to certain physical variables; rather, it entirely depends on human evaluations. Crucial information in this regard is how institutional frameworks (e.g. sets of rules of conduct) influence individual behaviour and actions through time. In this view, we may identify abandonment as a phenomenon intertwined with the actions of both private and public entities. The neo-institutional approach helps to highlight how the problem of abandonment is articulated with respect to property rights, formal constraints, reasons behind policy decisions, intervention strategies and implementations.

Spis treści

Part I

1.       Introduction

1.1.   Focus

1.2.   Main assumption

1.3.   Research question

1.4.   Methodology

1.5.   Structure

2.       Framework

2.1.      Definitions and operative issues

2.1.1.          Definitional issues

2.1.2.          Operative issues

2.2.      Factors, reasons and policies

2.2.1.          Factors of abandonment

2.2.2.          Reasons advanced to identify abandonment as a negative phenomenon

2.2.3.          Policies for coping with abandonment

3.       Case study

3.1.      Abandonment problem in Italy: an outline

3.2.      The case of Milan: unused buildings in a non-shrinking city

3.2.1. General data and figures

3.2.2. Abandoned private buildings in Milan

3.2.3. Local policies and institutional debate

3.3.      Preliminary findings

4.       Discussion

4.1.   Agentive and non-agentive functions

4.2.   Back to the framework

4.2.1.  Definitional and operative issues

4.2.2.  Factors

4.2.3.  Reasons

4.2.4.  Policies

5.       Conclusions

5.1.   Overview

5.2.   Reframing abandonment

5.3.   Limitations and further research directions

Part II

Appendices

O autorze

Anita De Franco has a PhD in “Urban Planning, Design and Policy”. She is a teaching assistant at the Polytechnic University of Milan and a member of the executive team of “Normactivity: research network on human and non-human normativity”. Her main research activity is revisiting urban studies and policies in light of a neo-institutional perspective.