DISASTERS AS PRETEXT FOR SOCIAL CONTROL: THE CASE OF L’AQUILA

(ITALY)

Permanent derogation, smart city and social engineering.

GIS analysis and critical perspectives for the study of L'Aquila’s post-earthquake

management

Communication at the conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA)

Research Network 08 “Disaster, Conflict and Social Crisis Research Network” (DCSCRN),

entitled Disasters, Conflicts and Social Crises: Causes, Impacts and Responses, sept.

18/19, University of Crete, Rethimno

By Dr. Gian Maria Valent,

DISSGeA, University of Padova, Italy

INTRODUCTION

This paper examines how a natural disaster may lead to the suspension of public

guarantees provided by national and local laws. Such practices are not simply the well-

known practice of speculating on a literally shattered housing market, but rather social

engineering to create a city that conforms its inhabitants to some particular social, ethnic

and political ideal. The conditions engendered by a catastrophic event make possible

conduct experiments in social engineering with the final purpose to replicate the logic of

emergency in areas where it is recognized the need of radical meta-legal actions. Such

practices can take shape thanks to the spatial power of strong institutional and economic

players to divide territory into zones and regulate access and population movements

between these areas.

The case study examined is the city of L'Aquila after the earthquake of April 2009. The

research method combines GIS1 analysis of spatial and demographic data with the study

of decision-making processes and the short, medium, and long term consequences of the

adopted solutions on citizens and urban tissue.

This article discusses the most relevant aspects of these issues, and is organized into

sections on the general disciplinary framework, a description of the case study, and

qualitative and quantitative analysis, ending with a brief presentation of the expected

results.

DISCIPLINARY FRAMEWORK

This research fits into the theoretical framework of Critical Urban Theory, especially

regarding the nature of contemporary Western cities, the processes of gentrification and

authoritarian practices in the management and design of territories and urban realities. In

1 Geographic Information System

particular, works by David Harvey2 and Saskia Sassen3 provide the basis to understand

the phenomena constituting contemporary cities, not just in the West but also on a global

scale. The functions and roles of the cities that Harvey and Sassen cover a wide range of

fields, which can be summarized as:

1. Area for the transmigration of cultural forms

2. Privileged site of flexible accumulation

3. Immaterial production:

• Business Services

• Services to persons

• Finance

• Control functions

• Annuity estate

• Culture / Entertainment

• Production of image / imaginary

Applying these concepts to analysis, the success or decline of a city no longer depends so

much on its proximity to raw materials for the manufacturing industry or other local

features as it was until the last century. A city’s lifeblood today depends on its location in

global networks that convey financial, cultural, and tourist flows. Competition among

cities is no longer limited to a nation, but embraces the entire world. Even if not all cities

can be considered “global cities”4 in Sassen’s sense, all of them, large and small, can and

do aspire to a high rank in the world. Metropolises compete with each other for

opportunities to stand the centre of global culture, such as a major event like the Olympics

or EXPO 2015. Likewise, smaller towns seek to permanently transform themselves into

node in the global network through adequate infrastructure and higher-level functions,

such, for example, two Emilian provincial capitals: Parma became headquarters of the

European Food Safety Authority, and Reggio Emilia became the location of HST

Mediopadana Station.

This kind of competition that leads to internal changes is, however, based almost entirely

on external logic: the biggest challenge is not to create a city that is a home for its

inhabitants, but to attract investment and globally networked cultural and capital.

Horacio Capel writes in “El debate sobre la construcción de la ciudad y el llamado modelo

Barcelona”:

It went from small operations to large projects, from priority for the

neighbourhoods and the quality of life of the inhabitants to the world

2 Harvey, The urban experience, Johns Hopkins, 1989

The condition of postmodernity, Blackwell, 1990

Il capitalismo contro il diritto alla città, Ombre corte, 2012 3 Sassen, Cities in a World economy, SAGE, 2012. 4 Briefly, cities that gather high-level functions and act globally.

competition. Now it's all over the city that equips itself to compete in the global

market.5

Fulfilling these new competitive goals requires a new kind of citizenship, stratified

differently than the old Fordist industrial city. The population of the new city is split into

an upper-middle class of professionals, artists, designers, and specialists in finance and

business services; and a class of low-income workers to supply the manpower for the

business services such as messengers, cleaners, and other low-skilled tasks, as well as the

whole range of human services, tourism, etc. The heightened social polarization is

reflected in a new centre-periphery dichotomy that sees city centres become increasingly

"show-cased", smart and screened at international level, while the suburban areas become

the refuge of “all the rest”.

Analyses of gentrification and urban renewal can explain how these changes are actually

happening. These works are drawn from a long period of time and diverse origins to

better understand the evolution and spread of the phenomenon. The writings of Peter

Marcuse 6 provide a useful general overview. Regarding the European continent,

enlightening authors include Manuel Castells7, Anne Clerval8 and Horacio Capel9, who

describe the transformations that have taken place in towns and cities in France and Spain.

Castells, Don Mitchell, and Neil Smith describe quite well the operations of urban renewal

in the United States. Smith’s article “New globalism, new urbanism” describes

contemporary gentrification as a process always less spontaneous and market-guided, but

instead the result of actively promoted and precise political strategies. Smith argues that

gentrification in the Global West has been marked by ongoing public-private consultation

and partnership that has filled the void left by the end of liberal urban policies.

Because of the social conflicts and protest movements these changes inspire, mainstream

urban policies have begun to change the nature of citizenship along with a city’s urban

structures. The urban centre of the city should preferably include the upper class

categories listed above, having the right professional, creative, and financial features.

Urban management should also have a fundamental goal to prevent social tensions, and

therefore dislocate the low-income classes to the suburbs. This way, the shift in citizenship

through gentrification strategies plays the dual role of tool and goal, simultaneously

making the cities more attractive and pacifying them, so that new waves of gentrification

can be promoted.

5 "Se pasó de las pequeñas actuaciones a los grandes proyectos, de la prioridad por los barrios y la calidad de

vida de los vecinos a la competencia mundial. Ahora es toda la ciudad la que se equipa para competir en el

mercado global.” Scripta Nova 11, 233, February 2007 (translated by the author). 6 In particular, see:

Marcuse, “Abandonment, gentrification and displacement: The linkages in N.Y.C.” In Smith, N. and

Williams P. (a.c.d.) Gentrification of the city, Boston: Routledge, 1986 and “Whose right(s) to what city?” In

Marcuse, Brenner and Mayer (a.c.d.) Cities for People, not for Profit, New York: Routledge, 2012. 7 Castells, La question urbaine, Paris, Maspero, 1972. 8 Clerval, “The spatial dynamics of gentrification in Paris: A synthesis map,” Cybergeo: European Journal of

Geography [En ligne], Espace, Société, Territoire, document 553. 9 Ibid.

Le Galés10 analyses the fundamental function of public and private coordination in his text

dedicated to governance processes in Europe. He describes the nature of the city, then

dissects its decision-making processes. First, states that the city cannot be considered a

collective subject, with all its components sharing the same goals, the same needs, and the

same mode of action. Such claims are often made purposefully to perpetuate an

appearance of unity so that the inner competition between classes is instead directed

outside between other cities. A relevant part of this competition consists in urban

marketing and branding strategies, including the renovation of the historic

neighbourhoods and monuments to transform the city’s physical body, and its material

and immaterial culture into objects and services to be consumed.

Such practices extend throughout the Global West without exception, even into European

countries, including Italy, for which several writings by the urbanist Edoardo Salzano11

offer detailed analyses of the role of rent as engine of growth and negotiating practices

between local governments, the formal urban policy decision makers, and private

stakeholders. Operating in this new way, rent has gradually replaced planning as the

primary tool for the design of urban and territorial layout.

The enslavement of development and urban administration to the logic of mere profit

constitutes a state of permanent derogation by which citizens have less and less control.

THE CASE STUDY: L’AQUILA

At first glance, the city of L'Aquila might seem an odd choice to analyse the emergency

model of management in urban governance. It is a medium-sized city in central Italy

without an industrial past and in a location at the crossroads of no continental networks.

Yet this case lets us observe the dynamics at play early in an emergency and extending

over the long term, the same management style that has guided the neoliberal urban

transformations of European and American cities.

L'Aquila is approximately 700 meters above sea level, in the valley of the river Aterno

between the Apennines of central Italy. The Gran Sasso and Laga mountains border the

city to the north and north-east, and the Chain of Sirente/Velino to the south. It was

founded in the mid-thirteenth century by the "castles" of the surrounding area, gathered in

the Comitatus Aquilanus in a sort of medieval synechism. Each castle possessed an area

called locale -which extension was proportional to its demographic amount- within one of

the city’s four quarters, visibly projecting the external territory inside the walls12. Over the

centuries, L’Aquila has suffered the consequences of numerous seismic events. Historical

information from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology tells us that from

the beginning of the fourteenth century several earthquakes have hit the area causing

periodic collapses of most of the buildings, which were subsequently rebuilt. Those most

10 Le Galés, European cities: Social conflicts and governance, Oxford University press, 2002. 11 In particular, see: Salzano, Baioni, Boniburini La città non è solo un affare, Aemilia University Press, Reggio

E. 2012. 12 These brief historical notes are taken from the website of the Municipality of L’Aquila

http://www.comune.laquila.it/pagina7_la-storia.html

serious quakes occurred in 1315, 1461, 1703, and 176213. The city’s basic urban layout,

however, does not undergo major changes until the post-war period: from the 1950s, the

urbanized area has grown by about six-fold, from 500 to 3100 hectares, while the

population has increased by only 25%, from 54,000 to 68,000. From the previous settlement

system consisting of an urban core and several small villages, there is now a continuous

urbanization occupying most of the valley without breaks. The city’s economic activities

are characterized by a strong tertiary sector with a 69.5% of employees working in public

or private services, 16.5% in industry, 10% in construction, and 4% in agriculture14. The

functional centre of economic activities has always been the city centre, which also houses

the university and all its suppliers.

The consequences of the 2009 earthquake were particularly serious for the historic centre

of L’Aquila, rendering uninhabitable (classified in E or F Class by the Department of Civil

Protection) the majority of the buildings concentrated in the so-called “Red Zone”, which

coincides almost exactly with the ancient city wall. The Class E buildings in the city centre

make up 62.8% of all the damaged buildings, against 25% registered in the rest of seismic

crater15. In absolute terms, 1567 were buildings unusable after the earthquake. According

to the 2001 census, the population of the old town was 10,400, to which must be added

several thousand students who were not officially residents of the city centre, but lived in

university housing.

ANALYSIS

We can distinguish short and medium-long term emergency management strategies.

1. Short term

The analysis of the first period of the emergency management is directly connected with

the exercise of spatial power. The immediate management and organization of people and

spaces according to the "Augustus Method" has enabled the Civil Protection to shape all

subsequent events, included choices about the model of resettlement and reconstruction.

The Augustus method is an official document that the Department of Civil Protection

developed in 2003, setting out courses of action for emergencies.

People are always involved in situations of crisis, both emotionally (fear of being

touched by the events, taking part in the problems of those involved), both

physically (perhaps not damaged, but forced to endure hardships). This forced

"participation" is mainly associated with feelings of loss and helplessness. Few are

able to independently develop strategies to respond to the emergency, while the

majority struggles between the risk of a hysterical and irrational panic and an

anxious search for help, feedback and some points of reference. If its institutional

13 Source: I.N.G.V. http://www.mi.ingv.it/eq/090406/storia.html 14 Source: ISTAT data, 2007. 15 Data from Department of Civil Protection, 28/06/2009.

counterparty will be sufficiently authoritative and determined, most of the citizens

will be willing to abdicate their decision-making autonomy, to undergo hardships

and limitations, to obey the directives issued.16

The highlighted phrases bring out the authoritarian character of the document, which does

not uses euphemisms or mince words.

Citizens are here described in each case as minor subjects incapable of independent

decision-making, who should be treated as such. The last two lines clearly state that

citizens must be brought to abdicate their freedoms and obey. The control strategies

immediately implemented by Civil Protection concern in particular the creation of tent

camps for displaced people who remain in the area 17 . These camps are organized

according to strict rules, strictly regulating exchanges and visits between people assigned

to different camps, and rules for information management that at first glance seems to

follow the embedded model of military journalism. Interviews with witnesses will

describe in detail how people live by these rules.

From an institutional point of view, the government has centralized all emergency

management powers in the Department of Civil Protection, conferring full powers to its

Director, appointed as Special Commissioner. The national government therefore conveys

all decision-making powers over land management from elected institutions to a single

government appointee who has no clearly defined duties, obligations, or limits. Most

problematic is that this power appears to reverse the principle of subsidiarity18. This

principle assigns priority to intervene through the adequate acts and policies to those

levels of government closest to the citizen; higher institutions may only intervene when

the local government is not able to face the problem with its means. Responsibility rests

first with the municipality, then the province, region, government agencies, and only

finally the State itself. Since this principle is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic,

it is not clear how it could have been lawfully dismissed.

The analysis of medium and long-term management regards resettlement and

reconstruction activities. The families left homeless were resettled, after staying in tent

camps, in buildings known by the acronym CASE19 grouped in nineteen so-called “New

Towns” around L'Aquila, which the authorities have labelled "durable". This term is not

randomly chosen: if they were defined as "temporary" one might expect a short stay, and if

they were classified as "permanent", one would expect the accommodation to be final. The

term "durable" is vague, and may denote a time period between four and twenty years or

much, not allowing anyone a secure foundation to plan for the future.

Reconstruction of L’Aquila’s city centre appears to be proceeding at a slow pace and

without a comprehensive plan20. What must be determined is whether this situation is

caused by a lack of programmatic capacity or if, on the contrary, the government strategy

16 Galanti, Il metodo Augustus, Department of Civil Protection, Roma 2003. 17 Some of the citizens left homeless were housed in hotels sometimes very far away, on the coast or in other

tourist areas, while the others remained in the area and were housed in tents. 18 Constitution of the Italian Republic, Art. 118. 19 Complessi Anti Sismici Ecocompatibili: Seismically Isolated and Eco-friendly Complex 20 See: Contreras D. et al., “Myths and realities about the recovery of L'Aquila after the earthquake,”

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 8, June 2014: 125-142.

is to rebuild the old town along different patterns, according to the OECD vision of the

smart city. The smart city plan would relocate the old inhabitants of the city centre far

away from the centre itself and among them and transform the places where they lived

and worked into something different, creating an urbs that is no longer civitas, and much

less polis.

2. Long term reconstruction: City or smart city?

The preparatory Issue Paper for the meeting co-organized by the Italian government,

Confindustria21 and CGIL, CISL, and UIL22 for 17/03/2012, redacted by the OECD and the

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, "Making the regions stronger after a natural disaster / Abruzzo in

2030: On the Wings of The Eagle 23 " lists the six priorities for long-term development

strategies. We report them below to evaluate their fundamental assumptions:

1. Encourage accountability and participation in decision-making. 2. Creating abilities, infrastructure and institutions to improve risk prevention and mitigating the

effects of natural disasters. 3. Develop a brand of the Abruzzo region and of the city of L'Aquila. 4. Improving the networks, skills and awareness of enterprises, and strengthen the links between

universities, research institutions and the business world. 5. Unleashing the potential of natural and sustainable resources. 6. Clarify the values of the cultural and artistic heritage to be preserved in the strategic restructuring of

the city of L'Aquila and explicitly differentiate them from the changes that need to be implemented

as part of the reconstruction plan of the capital.

At first glance, the “business oriented” character of the document stands out: there is no

mention of when the city’s inhabitants would return, while the document foregrounds the

necessity of developing a territorial brand and other considerations regarding the

exchange value of the urban and regional future. The document deplores the will to

reconstruct what was there before. It clearly expresses that the earthquake was a tragedy,

but also an opportunity to redesign the city according to these new criteria. The citizens

are mentioned briefly and only when necessary (14 times in an 11,400-word document),

while firm/companies are mentioned 41 times, and the words “branding” and “social” are

both mentioned 11 times.

The document often expresses hope that the community reinvent itself as "creative" and

the same word is used to describe the character that its living and working environments

will take on. It seems clear that the drafters of the document have been inspired by

Richard Florida’s 24 theory of the creative class, apparently without considering the

problems that this conception of urban development brings with it, especially regarding

21 The Italian association of manufacturing and service companies. 22 The three bigger Italian Trade Unions. 23 Rendere le Regioni più forti in seguito a un disastro naturale / Abruzzo 2030: sulle ali dell’Aquila (Note: the name

of the city “L’Aquila” is translated as “The Eagle” in English). 24 Florida, The rise of the creative class, New York: Basic Books, 2004.

the limited impact that a necessarily restricted group such as creative people can make in

the economy of an entire city25.

GIS ANALYSIS

GIS analysis plays a major role in this research. Quantifying the extent of the citizens’

dispersion and fragmentation after the earthquake requires incorporating all the involved

elements in a single information system to examine their positions and mutual relations.

Building a suitable GIS first required base mapping and orthophotography through the

Web Map Service (WMS) of the Abruzzo Region:

• IGM physics at the 100,000 WGS84

• ORTHOPHOTO post-earthquake WGS84

• ORTHOPHOTO L’Aquila 2010 WGS84

This aerial photo shows the areas of temporary housing units (MAP) and the CASE

project, very helpful information for the design of specific themes.

I included successive thematic layers in the GIS. After downloading the shapefiles

containing the 2001 and 2011 census data for the Abruzzo Region (WGS84) from the

institutional ISTAT website, these were superimposed on the base map. The intention was

to compare pre-earthquake with post-earthquake census datasets to quantify population

movements and the net demographic balance. The shapefile attributes are provided in a

table that shows, among other things, the number of inhabitants and the number of

households and dwellings for each section of the census subdivision at the sub-municipal

level. This creates a very detailed spatial resolution for analysis. In addition to the

shapefile, ISTAT has released a series of tables with population data, making it possible to

assign the correct number of inhabitants to each section of the map.

Unfortunately, however, data analysis revealed large gaps in the 2011 census, whose

database does not have the same fields as in 1991 and 2001 making comparison more

difficult. Combining the shapefile’s attribute tables with census data revealed that the

magnitude of these gaps is quite relevant, because of missing population data in 1648 of

the 9525 sections of the Abruzzo region, more than half of which (844) are in the province

of L'Aquila. There are also a number of sections with the placeholder code 77777777 in the

municipalities affected by the earthquake, whose families were temporarily residing in a

municipality other than their primary residence at the time of the census. A total of 3180

people went uncounted, of which 2825 (89%) were officially residents of L'Aquila and the

other 323 lived in other municipalities in the province.

The 2001 census data, inexplicably 13 years after the survey, include 1120 sections without

population values, 724 of which are in the province of L'Aquila.

The usefulness of census data resides in the specificity of their compilation: not only are

official residences recognized, but also the real number of persons present in the houses at

25 Kratke, “The new Urban Growth Ideology of ‘creative cities’” in Brenner, Marcuse and Mayer Cities for

People, not for profit, New York: Routledge, 2012.

the date of the survey. This would allow us to obtain an actual distribution of the

population and, by comparison with previous data, assess the dispersion pattern after the

earthquake. The lack of high-resolution data over the whole territory therefore forced us to

work with aggregate data released by ISTAT. While this data is less accurate, because it

comes from the same source and is organized by the same methods and at the same time

periods, a meaningful comparison is possible, even though it is less detailed than if the

data had followed more homogeneous coverage criteria.

The next step was to design a theme with the precise localization of the “New Town”

where the homeless population had been resettled. Aerial images located 19 CASE project

sites, encoded with a dot and the name of the site (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Map of the “New Towns” around the city of L'Aquila26

A spatial query selected tracts from the 2011 census, in which are included the 19 “New

Town”. Fortunately, these sections have complete data and the correct values for the field

“inhabitants”, so I was able to export a table with the total population data for residents.

In this way, I was able to establish that, according to the ISTAT census, 12,881 people are

living in these "durable" settlements outside of the city centre (see Table 1). As we have

seen, the residents of the old town before the earthquake numbered 10,800. An additional

spatial query revealed the population of the sections included in the actual Red Zone, 9973

according the 2001 census. Accounting for the shortcomings in data for some sections (28

26

Elaborated by the author.

out of 339 in the Red Zone), the observed difference between the aggregate value and that

for sections is negligible: the percentage of missing population is 7.6%, the percentage of

sections without values is 8.2%.

Because homes in the Red Zone, aside from individual isolated cases27, have not yet been

rebuilt or restored, we can assume that the majority of the inhabitants of the CASE project

are former residents of the old town.

SITE BUILDINGS INHABITANTS

Arischia 4 218

Assergi 4 122

Bazzano 21 1615

Camarda 5 297

Cese di Preturo 20 1581

Collebrincioni 3 187

Coppito 2 5 410

Coppito 3 18 1300

Paganica 2 25 1609

Paganica Sud e Sud 2 4 311

Pagliare di Sassa 11 1115

Roio 2 6 351

Roio Poggio 6 353

Sant'Antonio 11 986

Sant'Elia 1 7 577

Sant'Elia 2 4 347

Sassa NSI 18 1176

Tempera 9 534

Gignano 4 319

TOT. 185 13408

Table 1. Inhabitants of “New Towns” according to the 2011 census28

The next step to quantitatively assess the extent of the spread of citizens among the “New

Towns” is an analysis of the distances at which these resettlement sites are located in

relation to each other and the centre, to estimate the consequent level of discomfort. There

are two reasons. The first is social in nature, concerning the changes in relationships

between people, social ties, friendship, kinship, and neighbourhood. The second reason

relates to the role the centre of L'Aquila plays as the fulcrum of the territory’s economic

27 See Contreras et al., Ibid. 28 ISTAT data elaborated by the author.

activities, and lacking social fibre also damages the benefits of the economy of

agglomeration.

Cost-distance analysis method quantifies these distances, a calculation that consists in a

reducing the road graph of the province of L'Aquila to raster format and using IDRISI

software to trace the shortest paths. I have previously used this method for a similar

calculation in the study of the social consequences of the sanitation in the Oltretorrente

district of Parma, which returned enlightening results29. This method has been preferred to

network analysis because it is able to return meaningful results with a much lower

expenditure of resources. In fact, network analysis, which enables high-precision research

on the shortest paths and allocation of resources and services, requires thorough

preparatory work to assign to each single segment of a graph all the topological and

dimensional attributes, as well as the characteristics regarding feasibility, such as one-way

streets and prohibitions, and any obstacles. The precision of a topological database would

not have contributed greater value to the results, given the purpose of this work.

FIRST RESULTS OF THE GIS ANALISYS

Before the earthquake and the following resettlement, the inhabitants of L’Aquila’s city

centre lived in an area of approximately 1.65 square kilometres, easily walkable for a

resident, covering about 1.8 km along the length and 1.5 km in width. The whole road

network inside the historic city measures 55 km.

The resettlement has changed the orders of magnitude for areas and linear distances: the

perimeter of the “New Towns” includes 114 square kilometres. Distances have increased

from a few hundred meters until several kilometres: distance data are summarized in

tables 2 and 3.

Table 2 shows the distance of each “New Town” from the edge of the Red Zone (the city

centre). If the site of Sant’Antonio is still included in the urban area of L'Aquila and is only

1.86 km from the centre (see also Fig. 1), for the other sites the distances are still greater.

The average distance of a “durable” settlement from the city centre is 10.79 km, while the

site of Assergi is farthest away, at 18.6 km.

Table 3 shows the average, maximum, and minimum distance of each “New Town” to all

other sites. Their general average distance from each other is 12.26 km. Specifically, the

average distance from each site to all others varies from 9.33 km for Gignano to 19.91 km

for Assergi. Between the two sites most distant from each other, Assergi and Arischia,

there are 33.33 km.

29 Valent, Objetivos de control social en el saneamiento del barrio Oltretorrente de Parma, actas del XIII Coloquio

Internacional de Geocrìtica [http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/coloquio2014/Gian%20Maria%20Valent.pdf]

SITE

DISTANCE FROM

CITY CENTRE Km.

Assergi 18.60

Camarda 13.65

Arischia 13.60

Cese di Preturo 10.30

Pagliare di Sassa 8.61

Sassa NSI 8.44

Paganica Sud e Sud 2 8.02

Paganica 2 7.99

Tempera 7.92

Coppito 3 6.86

Collebrincioni 6.83

Coppito 2 5.91

Bazzano 5.03

Sant'Elia 1 4.35

Roio 2 3.53

Sant'Elia 2 3.11

Roio Poggio 2.91

Gignano 2.65

Sant'Antonio 1.86

Table 2: distance of the “New Towns” from the City Centre30

Figure 2. Graph of the data in table 231

30 Elaborated by the author. 31 Ibid.

SITE DISTANCE FROM OTHER

“New Towns” Km.

AV. MAX. MIN.

Assergi 19.91 33.33 6.09

Arischia 17.84 33.33 8.52

Camarda 15.24 28.39 5.99

Cese di Preturo 14.22 30.03 3.64

Collebrincioni 13.11 17.87 9.49

Pagliare di Sassa 12.15 27.33 2.90

Tempera 11.86 22.65 1.34

Coppito 3 11.74 26.59 1.13

Paganica 2 11.63 23.12 2.81

Roio Poggio 11.35 22.54 2.13

Paganica Sud e Sud 2 11.33 22.75 1.34

Roio 2 11.30 23.17 2.13

Sassa NSI 11.28 27.16 1.13

Coppito 2 11.26 25.64 1.56

Bazzano 10.17 21.82 1.86

Sant'Elia 1 10.12 21.14 0.90

Sant'Antonio 9.67 21.59 4.70

Sant'Elia 2 9.59 19.90 0.90

Gignano 9.33 17.83 1.55

Table 3: distances between the “New Towns”32

32 Ibid.

Fig. 3. Graph of the data in Table 333

Figure 3. Shortest paths from “New Towns” to the Red Zone34

33 Ibid.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Distances between the "New Towns" (Km)

MAX.DIST. AVERAGE DIST. MIN. DIST.

Figure 4. Shortest paths between the “New Towns”35

From these initial results, we can assert that the dispersion and fragmentation suffered by

citizens resettled in CASE project sites are considerable: the distances are certainly not

insurmountable but to go from one “New Town” to another, or to the reopened areas of

the city centre, is essential to have access to adequate means of transport and also have the

required time. Such a situation greatly obstructs the maintenance of social relations and

limits the capacity of the resettled citizens to act as a civic community.

A significant part of the forthcoming field work will be dedicated to understanding the

ongoing implications of these new spatial relationships for the citizens.

EXPECTED RESULTS

One result that I aim for this research to achieve is demonstrating that the forces and

concepts involved in the genesis of new urban forms in the wider world also extend to the

scale of medium-sized cities and provincial capitals. The wide spreading in local field of

the global models of urban and territorial policies is enacted by practices that tend not so

much to break, but rather to overcome the law, in compliance with the priorities of

efficiency and speed in decision and action. I define these practices as "meta-legal" because

they go beyond current legislation without contravening it, through the extensive use of

34 Ibid. 35 Ibid.

governmental commissioners, exemptions, and special powers. The Italian government

has used the meta-legal practises in L’Aquila to de facto overcome law through

bureaucracy and exceptions, operating as if it were invested of a sovereign power36.

The apparent oxymoron of "permanent state of exception" proposed by Giorgio Agamben

can frame the situation in a solid theoretical framework:

The creation of a permanent state of exception (even if it is not officially

declared) has become one of the essential tasks of the modern state. This

includes states who declare themselves to be democracies. In this sense the state

of exception tends today to present itself as the dominant paradigm of

government in contemporary politics.37

Secondly, spatial and demographic analysis will quantitatively define the fragmentation of

the civic body, allowing me to draw conclusions about the effects of this fragmentation on

the abilities of the citizens to take decisions and make plans. More than this, I can theorize

how a fragmented citizenry can think and act as a collective subject. I aim to assess how

the organization and location of resettlement sites for the displaced persons, from

temporary tent camps to the “New Towns”, has influenced their identity as citizens, their

ability to control the actions of power and their ability of proposal and self-organization.

Finally, I will analyse the most experimental feature of emergency management in

L’Aquila: instruments never seen before in the Italian Republic for short and long term

coercive population control. The experiences inferred from this after-earthquake can

provide a precise model to replicate these meta-legal practices in different situations

where the emergency nature, whether or not caused by catastrophic events, can be

specifically created and imposed on the people for diverse reasons. These excuses can

include, for example, the construction of strategic or military sites, the organization of

mega-events or major government works, bypassing both local authorities and democratic

control by the citizens.

36 Concept developed by Carl Schmitt, Politische Theoligie, Munchen 1922. 37

Agamben Lecture at European Graduate School, Aug. 2003.

SOURCES

Municipality of L’Aquila http://www.comune.laquila.it/pagina7_la-storia.html

Department of Civil Protection

Earthquake in Abruzzo 2009

http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/jcms/it/emergenza_abruzzo.wp

Il metodo Augustus, Roma 2003

ISTAT

Territorial Bases and census variables

http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/104317

2011 Census

http://www.istat.it/it/censimento-popolazione/popolazione-2011

2001 Census

http://www.istat.it/it/censimento-popolazione/popolazione-2001

Abruzzo Region

Geoportale http://www.regione.abruzzo.it/xcartografia/

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