Poliarchie / Polyarchies volume 4 n. 2/2021

With the proliferation of studies on and local programmes of urban regeneration on the one hand and the stereotypes and stigmatisation of peripheries on the other hand, a more comprehensive understanding of urban peripheries is needed today, when urbanisation is proceeding at a dizzying pace. Focusing on the northern peripheries of Naples, this article discusses the ways in which we can renew our understanding of urban peripheries by posing two views of ‘the peripheral’: a view from the city, which entails a valorisation of the knowledge, know-how and issues related to what is commonly known as urban regeneration, and a view from the periphery, where suburban ways of living raise emerging complexities and peripheral conditions that push towards a reconceptualisation of urban peripheral neighbourhoods. The peripheral area of Scampia was adopted as a research ground for reflecting on this reconceptualisation. In this respect, the northern urban peripheries of Naples were adopted as a case in reflecting on what lies at the urban–suburban intersection, and the conceptual observation was extended from the famed Scampia to the urban outskirts, which are currently undergoing uneven social fragilisation as they have been left behind in the regeneration processes of places such as Scampia.