COVID-19 in Naples

To conclude this blog, this final post is going to address how the city of Naples has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and its related lockdowns. As of today, January 8th 2021, there are 85 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1.8 million confirmed deaths globally (WHO, 2021). Italy was one of the first…

Toxic air in the port of Naples – Children’s UPE

Air pollution is an issue which the field of Urban Political Ecology (UPE) is becoming increasingly concerned with. This is particularly as the burden of air pollution is often unequal, ‘along the lines of location, class, gender, and ethnicity (Véron, 2006:2093). However, recent research has further highlighted that children are unequally exposed to air pollution,…

In the Naples waste crisis ‘rubbish is gold’ – Part 3

Now that the previous two blog posts have covered the extensive events of the Naples waste crisis, this third post is going to analyse it through the concepts of Urban Political Ecology (UPE). The first post of this blog introduces the concept of metabolism, as ‘the circulation of physical, chemical and biological components’ of cities…

In the Naples waste crisis ‘rubbish is gold’ – Part 2

In the first part of this three-part blog post we discussed the beginning of the Naples waste crisis, mentioning at the end that it was connected to the environmental justice movement. In this second post we are going explore how the crisis developed. 1994 – Prime Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi formally declares a state of…

In the Naples waste crisis ‘rubbish is gold’ – Part 1

‘Rubbish is gold’ said Nunzio Perella, when he started collaborating with the government authorities, following his arrest in 1992, for involvement in illegal waste trafficking, as a member of the Perella Clan (D’Alisa et al., 2010:242). But what does he mean by this? This three-part blog post is going to discuss the Naples waste crisis…

Has the ship sailed for Scampia? Part 2

In this second post, we are going to use the themes of urban political ecology (UPE), to understand why the plans for social responsibility were never fully realised. So, what went wrong? The three principal aspects of UPE are key to understanding what led this housing project into a decline that has lasted over forty…

Has the ship sailed for Scampia? Part 1

Le Vele translates to the Sails; these buildings take their name due to their triangular shaped exterior, which resembles the sails of a ship. You may recognise these public housing complexes as the set of Sky’s acclaimed TV series Gomorrah, which, although fictional, still illustrates how the internal architecture of these buildings facilitated the distribution of illegal…

“I’m not Italian, I am Neapolitan, it’s another thing!”

Hello, my name is Caterina, and over the next few weeks I will be exploring Naples, Italy, through the concepts of urban political ecology (UPE). UPE is a critical concept which enables a deeper well-rounded understanding of the multi-dimensional life of cities, as it ‘helps untangle the interconnected economic, political, social and ecological processes that…