Political discourses, public discussions, and studies in different fields have increasingly focused on the vulnerabilities affecting cities and on the possible responses to them, which are often traced back to urban resilience and sustainability. Research and debates in the field of retailing and consumption geographies are no exception. To carry out a critical analysis on the retail policies associated with the urban commercial change of the Naples city center, the case study is placed in the context of the literature review focusing on three concepts: spatial vulnerability, adaptive resilience, and territorialized sustainability. The analysis is conducted combining data, policy, and planning documents with long-term field research. The changing relationship between consumption practices, retail dynamics, and policies highlights a sort of hybridization of commercial and consumption central cityscapes, which is produced by the coexistence between retail-led phenomena of regeneration and forms of local resistance. The results of the research highlight, from a Mediterranean perspective, new general insights on the impact of selective forms of vulnerability and on the adaptive resilience strategies adopted, but most of all on the indispensable rethinking of the urban retail governance for the enhancement of urban livability, social cohesion, and locally sustainable lifestyles, activities, and places.

Apesar das inúmeras investigações realizadas até ao momento nos mais distintos quadrantes disciplinares, ainda não há consenso na academia sobre o momento do advento da sociedade de consumo. Para tal desentendimento concorrem não só as distintas formas como o consumo é perspetivado, mas também o facto de a sociedade de consumo resultar de mudanças que paulatinamente afetaram um conjunto multifacetado de processos económicos, sociais e culturais (Miles & Miles, 2004), com expressões diferenciadas nos distintos contextos geográficos (Massey, 2005). No entanto, o mesmo não se poderá dizer sobre a importância crucial que o comércio e o consumo tiveram na organização da cidade moderna e pós-moderna, assim como sobre o modo como os espaços de comércio e consumo influenciaram o caráter da vida social, as práticas quotidianas, os comportamentos dos consumidores e os estilos de vida, em particular em meio urbano (Amendola, 2000; Bookman, 2018) [...] Este livro reúne os principais trabalhos apresentados na sexta edição do seminário internacional, organizado por um grupo de geógrafos do IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa (Lisboa, 12-16 de setembro, 2017), com a contribuição científica de colegas do Brasil, Espanha, Itália, Argentina, México, França e Portugal. Consagrada à problemática do Comércio, Consumo e as Novas Formas de Governança Urbana, esta edição do evento tinha subjacente os seguintes objetivos: (i) dar continuidade ao desenvolvimento da agenda internacional de investigação explorada nas edições anteriores, enriquecendo-a com novas abordagens e casos de estudo; (ii) discutir os desafios conceptuais e metodológicos colocados à investigação pelas mudanças das paisagens comerciais e de consumo na cidade contemporânea do Sul Global; (iii) debater com académicos e diferentes stakeholders, da esfera pública e privada, os problemas que hoje se colocam ao planeamento e gestão dos sistemas comerciais com vista à melhoria da sua resiliência e ao desenvolvimento sustentável das cidades [...]

The contribution starts from the historical importance of the commercial function in Naples in structuring the urban space, a function to which it is possible largely to trace the long-lasting relationship between consumption and demand for places, as well as many changes in the urban image. Retail organized the city not only on the main streets but also at the scale of non-minoritarian and widespread micro-spaces in the various neighborhoods, in a Naples that, especially in the twentieth century, was transformed according to macro logic very different from today’s. Today the element that seems to most order the structure of places and the urban landscape is consumption, mixed with living and related activities, walking and cultural functions: elements mediated by local authorities, which in turn must deal with new phenomena. The question arises in territorial terms, as retail and consumption (and their protagonists) claim places and public space. The case study will be that of the metropolitan territory in an extended sense and will be analyzed through four scales chosen as the most exemplary of the change: the upgraded/touristified city-centre; the historical centre in its marginal parts; the metropolitan interstices; the small and medium-sized centers at the metropolitan scale. Demands of products and places that become the expression of a new demand for cities bring out the potential, contradictions and conflicts of a Mediterranean city in transition.

El artículo se focaliza sobre la relación entre cambio urbano y espacios del consumo, enmarcándola dentro del proceso de globalización y, en particular, en el contexto del impacto que este juega en las ciudades, lugares donde las lógicas económicas y políticas y las consecuencias sociales la geopolítica global se concretan. Después de una introducción general, el focus se desplaza sobre las microgeografías que la relación entre ciudad y consumo produce a escala euromediterránea, diversificando el proceso de valorización del espacio urbano implementado en las regiones fuertes de lo desarrollado en el las débiles. Las formas de polarización y la inseguridad socio-espacial, así como el impacto de las políticas de regeneración urbana en la geopolítica local, se analizan con atención a las ciudades del sur de Europa, que no es sólo un área periférica dentro de la UE sino también un frontera dentro de un espacio más amplio que abarca toda el área mediterránea.

The article analyzes the impact of the new attractors of shopping and leisure in the suburbs of the Metropolitan Area of Naples. After an introduction on the different features of today’s suburbs, the focus shifts on the transformations in the area to the north of Naples along an important axial highway (the Circumvallazione, officially the SP1). This axial road, as well as the so-called “median axis” (Asse Mediano), are analyzed as retail and consumption spaces. This case study demonstrates the complex reality of a suburb too hastily considered as uniform and anonymous: although in this area there is chaos, decay and forms of illegality, it is also characterized by a relative centrality thanks to new retail and consumption spaces which represent key-places for their users, places where the rhythm of life is slowed down and socialisation is somewhat recovered.