Quartieri di periferia e capitale culturale creolo: una prospettiva per Milano

Gentrification –mostly pushed by small creative businesses- had a central role for the regeneration of semicentral areas in Milan during last century’s final decades. In this millennium, in suburban areas, the scene is occupied by real estate companies and the related archistars. Monumentalization and gentrification could cooperate promoting “visitability” and new consumers together with the restoration of old and picturesque sites and the defence of local cultures and professions. City’s polarization – due to two considerable incoming populations, the global network of transnational capitalistic bourgeoisie and migrants’ fluxes – could be mitigated by the middle classes, small entrepreneurs, artisans, businessmen: on the one side small and traditional neighborhood shops, sometimes at a standstill; on the other new entrepreneurs or old entrepreneurs able to creatively redefine their activity following the cultural vocation of the postmodern city. The thesis is that this creative class has actually in its hands the future of Milan’s symbolic economy and can connect the big protagonists and the many who are discarded by the city. Starting from these considerations, the six neighborhoods taken into account were classified into a typology according to the importance of the small cultural enterprises for their regeneration.