The Inhospitable City: Urban Spaces, Fears and New Forms of Social Exclusion in Contemporary Metropolises

Abstract

Contemporary metropolises appear increasingly hostile and inhospitable to the point that an image of the city composed mostly of those spaces that remove the threat of any social contact has long prevailed. As “global citizens” we prefer to stop and pass through increasingly anonymous and neutralizing places whose main objective is to repel all those who represent an incessant challenge to the stability of the world order, that is, all those clandestine and “desperate” existences that wander in the interstices of large metropolises (Rossi, 2006) and who for this reason are daily relegated to the background of social life. It is enough to walk the length and breadth of the streets of our metropolises to realise the massive presence of street furniture designed to make life increasingly difficult for those who live on the margins, such as, for example, anti-homeless benches and a whole series of surfaces and areas of the city equipped with protrusions, bollards, racks, metal nets, to prevent those who live on the streets from sitting, sleeping and eating. It is a real “punitive city” (Foucault, 1993) that through an unprecedented “hostile architecture” transforms contemporary metropolises into places that are increasingly less accessible for the poorest and, in general, for all those social groups considered dangerous, useless and unwanted. The contribution aims to analyse these unprecedented strategies of social exclusion and above all to reflect on the consequences that they produce on “normal” city life.