Meridian Cities Today. From Cosenza, some Reflections about Possible Developments of South Historic Centres

Abstract

In cities transformed by neoliberalism and the machinery of capitalist production, the pandemic has opened new breaches into which new and old practices of value accumulation and extraction continue to creep in. In southern Italy, the slow development that still moves cities has preserved many areas, the manifestation of capitalist phenomena has been less violent. Delving into the "ancient heart" of these cities allows one to discover worlds lost at other latitudes. The article proposed here starts precisely from a glimpse into one of these deepened windows thanks to the testimony, which in this text is narrated in the form of an interview, of Franco Piperno, professor and philosopher of science, former councilor for culture of the Municipality of Cosenza in the 1990s. The experiences conducted in the oldest part of the city of Cosenza in the 1990s were conformed as manifestations of hope that, already at an embryonic level, seemed to ignite reflections on the ability to restore the ”triad urban” already at that time strongly compromised. The visionary power of these experiences is summarized in the book In Praise of Southern Public Spirit. Genius Loci and Social Individual, published in 1997, in which a manifesto of the new polis for Cosenza was elaborated, which put the rights and duties of the civitas at the center, exercising active care of the urbs. The example of Cosenza, in the forms of active citizenship it tries to manifest today, and in the way it is narrated and experienced by those who live there, echoes many micro-experiences, possible implementers of new urban alternatives.

Keywords

• historical city
• south
• meridian thought
• urban planning
• participatory democracy