This article aims to investigate the role, limits and opportunities of participation programmes in a\ud local political context where consensus-building and inclusionary practices are not high priorities.\ud A public housing neighbourhood in Palermo is used as a case study in order to critically highlight\ud the ambiguous role that participative practices tend to play in fragile contexts. The case study\ud also highlights the need for some preconditions for effective participatory practices in planning.\ud These preconditions are focused on Arendt’s notion of the ‘space of democracy’. Some concepts\ud developed by Hannah Arendt will be used to explain the necessity of these preconditions, and their\ud relevance to the political discourses of participatory planning processes will be discussed

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Changes in consumer shopping behavior and in retail spaces, such as shopping malls, department stores and e-commerce, have modified localization models of traditional retail shops, also affecting urban fabric and spatial distribution of urban rent. Even city centers have undergone significant transformations or even decline, especially if local economic system and real estate market are weak and recessionary. A significant amount of commercial properties may have long vacancy due to excess supply, since many traditional shops close their business because they are no longer competitive and, moreover, there is no immediate takeover by new tenants. The decline of central urban areas depends on the interaction of multiple economic, social and cultural factors, but it can be countered by urban policies oriented not only to physical redevelopment of urban fabric, but also to social cohesion and multiculturalism. Migrants bearers of varied cultural values, coming from different continents and settling permanently in the Italian cities, have rented some of these empty properties by locating retail shops specifically oriented to their own communities or also to the citizens needs. The presence of migrants contributes, indeed, to support the retail real estate demand, to mitigate the minus-valorization of real estate capital and also to contain the revenues contraction. This phenomenon has been analyzed in some streets of the historic centre of Palermo that are traditionally shopping areas and have become the privileged place for locating retail shops managed by immigrants.

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