From Partial Gentrification to “New Precariousness”? Lasting Popular Neighbourhood and Conflicting Cohabitations in Palermo’s Historic Centre
For several years, the working-class district of Palermo’s historic centre, Magione, has been the subject of an important urban renewal program to promote the settling of wealthy city-dwellers. This article aims to describe the effects of the conflicting cohabitation between former and new inhabitants in this district. We demonstrate that the relative failure of the gentrification process in Magione must be analyzed in relation to the inhabitants’ usage of the district’s public spaces. This issue is as determining as the access to housing to understand the territory’s socio-spatial transformations. Our conclusive hypothesis is that a “new precariousness” is taking place in Magione, a process that is defined through the partially gentrified urban space’s deskilling, and for which we enunciate the possible conditions.