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spaces. In 2015, the City also created a new office of Green Areas and Urban Liveability. Liveability has become an important signifier for the city’s actions to renew green spaces, as evidenced by the dozens of new playgrounds and educational gardens recently created; the inauguration of eight new children’s playgrounds (2015)19 and the opening of new parks such as the Parco della Salute (2016)20 and Spazio Verdinois (2017)21 have served as municipal actions that extend the benefits of liveability and health to various resident groups. Most recently, tree planting and urban agriculture have been adopted citywide as beautification measures, to mitigate the effects of heat and pollution, and to restore former local agricultural spaces. Following a devastating fire in 2016, the city has reinstated Palermo’s famous Monte Pellegrino forest through efforts such as its Go Green collective tree-planting initiative.22 Furthermore, the municipality has made urban agriculture a priority during the re-appropriation of former farmlands lost to illicit construction activities in decades prior. These and other initiatives form an integral part of the municipality’s ambition to formulate a new image for Palermo and become a city with a “green” culture. Most recently, in 2017, the municipality launched a new plan for the urban renewal of all jurisdictions and neighbourhoods and called upon citizens and other private entities to be active in “returning decorum and cleanliness to the many public spaces that are our common good”. So far, the municipal office of Green Areas and Urban Liveability has been working closely with municipal police and private providers tasked with maintenance and repairs.23 The potential social impacts of those projects on future housing costs and displacement are unclear. Author: Galia Shokry
Notes 1) 2015 Instituto Nazionale di Statistica. (http://demo.istat.it/) 2) Between 2001 and 2010, the population of Palermo declined by 4.5%, due to suburbanization and local migration to Northern Italy. As of 2015, only 3.8% of the city population was of non-Italian descent. (Cittadini Stranieri, Anno 2015; Popolazione Residente, http://demo.istat.it/) 3) During this construction boom, “only one fifth of the urban surface area was rezoned into public green space, while the remainder, some 70,000 m², went to building development and streets.” See Maccaglia (2009). 4) See Guggenheim & Söderström (2010). 5) For more information on Palermo’s efforts to carve out a new identity, see Maccaglia (2009). 6) See Bacon & Majeed, (2012). 7) See Maccaglia (2009). 8) See Guggenheim & Söderström (2010). 9) See: http://books.openedition.org/enseditions/1495#ftn11 10) See the social media activity surrounding the space and its opening: https://www.facebook.com/pg/associazionehandala/ about/ 11) A highway separates the waterfront from communities in the historic centre. For more information on the project, see Guggenheim & Söderström (2010). 12) See Bacon & Majeed, (2012). 13) For activist work on this topic, see: http://www.mediterraneoantirazzista.org/cera-una-volta-palermo; For an academic perspective, see Lo Piccolo (2009). 14) City press release on the subject: https://www.comune.palermo.it/noticext.php?id=7206&sel=