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The Gate - Porta Palazzo: living not leaving

Commitment II
Create opportunities for minorities and marginalised groups
and communities to be consulted about their needs and their
perception of the responsiveness of state and community
structures to meet those needs
Suggested options for action:
Establish consultative councils on which all identity groups are represented and with the
statutory right to be consulted on the impact of government policies.
Create systems of community meetings that allow community members to express their
views and air their grievances.

Commitment V
Ensure that physical environments create opportunities for, rather than discourage,
social interaction
Suggested options for action:
Work with planners, architects and academics to identify how our physical environment
impacts on social cohesion and raise awareness of this knowledge.
Require local authorities and planning bodies to review the existing environment,
identifying obstacles to social cohesion and take steps to remove those obstacles or
minimise their negative impact.
Background issues
Porta Palazzo, Turin, is Europes largest open-air market, selling footwear, clothes,
house wares, toys and food from across Italy and around the world. It has been in
existence for more than 150 years and has one thousand merchants, 700 street
vendors with 40,000 visitors each day and 100,000 on Saturday.
It is a commercial hub whose opportunities have always attracted newcomers to the
city. This regular influx of new cultural communities means hat in 2000 nearly 20% of
those living and working in the market were foreign born, compared to the city average
of 4%. Today, over 45 nationalities live in this densely populated inner-city
neighbourhood which relies on a very complex system of internal and informal rules.
The market is surrounded by social or public housing blocks whose residents are tied
culturally and economically to the market, demonstrating the citys commitment to
integrating immigrant and other lower class communities into the wider strategic
framework.

Unemployment in the neighbourhood stood at 12.8%, compared to about 6% in the city


as a whole, and barriers to formal entry into the labour force pushed many immigrants
into illegal or informal work, often in the neighbourhoods daily market.
Unique to Porta Palazzo is the Balon flea market and its mix of registered, formal and
informal vendors. Since 1935 irregular migrants have had the right to exchange goods
in the market by a special city statute.
In 2001, that right was temporarily withdrawn, and the relative stability and security of
the area rapidly declined and threatened the commercial vitality of the market and the
whole neighbourhood.
Hostilities escalated between groups who were legally licensed as market vendors and
those who were not, fuelling tensions between diverse groups.
Surrounding environmental and physical space issues were also exacerbating the
tensions (each day the market was generating 15 tons of garbage and residents
complained about noise at night).
City officials recognized that an intervention was required.
Goals
The Projects overall message was to convince residents to stay in the neighborhood and
invest in its future while investing in their own futures - hence the projects motto,
Living, Not Leaving.
Specigic goals were:
to create opportunities for identifying main problems and shared collective
solutions

to identify and engage informal leadership

to promote a collective sense of belonging

to increase responsibilities of informal traders

to develop their range of influence

to engage them in the participation process

to legitimate the participation process

to promote a new legal framework

Method

The City of Turin recognized that a multi-faceted approach was needed to successfully
address the variety of factors threatening the social and commercial viability of the
Porta Palazzo market.
Since 1998 the Porta Palazzo had been the focus of Turins major economic
development strategy, called The Gate.
The "Porta Palazzo Project" Committee was established in January 1998. Promoted by
the City of Torino, the Committee is a non-profit initiative that saw mixed participation
by both public institutions and private companies as promoters and local partners. The
local partners are representative of the local community and guarantee the involvement
and the knowledge of the project within the area.
The quality of urban space was recognised as an incentive to economic development, as
well as the means to resolve high levels of local unemployment and crime.
In 2002, the project evolved into a Local Development Agency project and involved
both public institutions and private partners, and broad community representation.
An assessment was undertaken which showed that while tensions between the licensed
and unlicensed vendors were at the root of many of the other social, security and space
issues, this group of 300 vendors was a vital part of the local economy.
Therefore a participatory community model was used, including the participation and
empowerment of the irregular or unlicensed merchants and formal leaders (including
the Deputy Mayor on Economic Development and the Municipal Police),
Training was offered to informal stall holders to help them engage in the process and
information was provided to public institutions to increase their awareness of the
situation of the traders.
The Porta Palazzo, Living Not Leaving Project succeeded in having irregular
vendors recognised in the new legal category of non professionals. This resulted in
these vendors being assigned their own specific space in the market.
This in turn resulted in the merchants taking on a greater leadership role, including
increased cooperation with the municipal police.
Each Saturday a rotating group of merchants took on the role of Service Operators to
help control the inside of the market by overseeing vendor placement, transit in the
areas and payment of public ground and street cleaning tasks.
The VIVIBALON Association was created as a collective body to engage informal
leaders from target groups (over 200 of them joined). It was a formal forum was that
keeps vendors and traders up to date on municipal decisions. It was also a common
space to share concerns and discuss issues before they escalated.
The Association operates as a nonprofit private-public partnership, the model was
innovative by Italian standards; it was the first time that this flexible structure had been
used to manage and implement a regeneration project.

The Council provides the Association with a budget and an office within the market
There are regular meetings of the board of directors and period assemblies of all
members (200) to share and take decisions and to update the members on Council
decisions. It also carries out informal conflict mediation, liaise with Council and
promote the market.
The Porta Palazzo project also offers social services, including psychological help, and,
every Sunday, Italian classes.
Impact
Formal legal status -and protection- led to an immediate decrease in the chaos and
problems within the market as vendors assumed greater responsibility for their assigned
areas.
The overall result of this initiative was an integrated culture of respect and equity
among market vendors and residents.
There was a decrease in the problems of noise garbage and anti-social behaviour.
The district was revitalized attracting tourists and visitors from other parts of the city
once again, generating business for merchants, shaping a positive identity for the
market, and reconnecting the neighborhood with the urban fabric of Turin.
Enabling conditions
The initial project was financed by the European Union.
The City Council realized that the situation was critical and undermining the successful
market and therefore knew that they had to take action.
The City Council was committed to support and legitimate the process and to promote
an organisational change of the culture of the public institutions
There was a strong shared interest among all stakeholders to find a solution
Other comments
Dr. Luisa Avedano, Turin City Council, concluded that the project demonstrated the
need to take time developing a new process step-by-step and the importance of a strong
shared interest among stakeholders and commitment from the public institutions to
developing participatory approaches.
It was important to ensure that social inclusion and integration were factored into all
aspects of project planning.
The Project investigated all possible institutions, including unusual actors, who might
become collaborative partners.

One of the main political policies guiding the success of the regeneration strategy. was
the guarantee of equal access to services.
A participatory approach often has a domino effect -- success in one area will carry over
into other areas of concern.
References/contacts for farther information
Luisa Avedano Turin City Council Integration Policies and Urban Regeneration
Department, Turin, Italy
e-mail: luisa.avedano(at)comun.torino.it
website: www.comune.torino.it/portapalazzo

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