Habiter les villes-monde. (Non/Virtuels/Nouveaux) Lieux et relations sociales

Sur-modern society is characterized by the emergence of new forms of (human) dwelling, very different from the modern ones. Some of them are individualistic, other are collective or founded on sharing and collaboration. Currently, the so-called “Social Streets” can be considered as one of the much innovative experimentations in the field of urban dwelling. As a form of social innovation based mainly on a culture of gift and sharing they try to answer to social inclusion needs and to enhance practices of urban environment care and defense. This paper aims to describe the most relevant features of the “World-Cities” drawing on Marc Augé definition of place, non-place and virtual place and to interpret Social Streets as a new, original and hybrid mix between the ideas of “real” and “virtual” place. As “new places”, Social Streets promise to give an important contribution in the re-generation of contemporary cities and of the social relations which take place inside them. This reflection will also be combined with the restitution of the main empirical findings concerning the phenomenon of Social Streets in Italy and gathered by a quali/quantitative research which gave birth to the Italian Observatory on the Social Streets.