Urban Decay, Stigma, and Demolition. A Tough Neighbourhood in Public Discourse (Genoa, c. 1980--2020)

In various Italian cities, some large social housing estates built in the 1970s and 1980s on land acquired under Law 167/1962 have become tough neighbourhoods – emblems of urban decay, deprivation and marginality, if not of widespread illegality and crime. Having gained high visibility in public discourse, these estates have been subject to significant processes of territorial stigmatisation. Originally conceived as a response to − and ideally a solution for − the housing problem, as well as a means to regenerate urban outskirts, they have turned into an urban problem themselves: so serious and seemingly insoluble a problem that demolition has been proposed as a way of addressing it at its root. In Genoa, the unenviable title of tough neighbourhood par excellence belonged to Begato, more specifically to the Diamante estate and, within it, the socalled Dam. Focusing on this case, the article illustrates how the image of Begato as a notorious neighbourhood took shape, how the Dam became an emblem of urban decay, and how public debate surrounding it and its fate developed, particularly with regard to the hypothesis of its demolition – long discussed and eventually implemented around 2020.

Keywords: Social Housing, Tough Neighbourhoods, Law 167/1962, Begato Dam, Territorial Stigmatisation, Demolition.

Bruno Bonomo, Degrado, stigma, demolizione. Un quartiere difficile nel discorso pubblico (Genova, 1980-­2020 ca.) in "STORIA URBANA " 182/2025, pp 137-162, DOI: 10.3280/SU2025-182007