Connected Proximity. ‘Social Streets’ Between Social Life and New Forms of Activism

[Autom. eng. transl.] The chapter, by Fabio Introini and Cristina Pasqualini, is focused on Social Streets. From 2013 onwards, in the main cities of Italy, the emerging phenomenon of Social Streets (from now on SoSts) has been gathering momentum. This process is a form of social interaction with many forms of social action, participation and metropolitan transition. A social network of social networks in the public domain with their online and offline action. Firstly aimed at rebuilding social ties, confidence and social capital, SoSts play a pivotal role at the pre-political level, reshaping in a participatory way the forms of dwelling. Being dwelling in meta-practice, this means that SoSts are becoming collectors, catalysts and enhancers of innovative social practices inspired by a new philosophy of sustainability and culture of sharing, which have political meanings and consequences. Even if, in contemporary society, pre-political action is in the political process, the rise of SoSts is pushing its trajectory towards the intersection with institutional politics and the processes of governance, SoSts identity and activism. In this paper, which is based on the evidence of quantitative research on the city of Milan (which, with its 62 SoSts, is the Italian city in which this phenomenon has currently reached its largest expansion) SoSts, acting in the wider and heterogeneous network of urban players (institutions, civil society, media) can affect the collective life of the polis.