Poetically Inhabiting. URGES for the City: Incubator of Social Policies and Culture

URGES in Matera represents a tangible example of how Academia can bridge the Communication gap between the Local Administration and the city, i.e. the citizens. The inclusion of green areas in peripheral urban contexts can represent a complex challenge, particularly when it comes to overcoming the initial resistance of a disinterested, if not hostile, community. The project in question exemplifies an approach that has been able to combine urban planning with the active participation of residents, transforming an imposed intervention into a process of valorization of the shared territory. The participating residents developed a sense of ownership in the project, taking responsibility for it and protecting it over time. Through preliminary interviews with the designers, the broad contours of the potential for the project, including its critical issues, were drawn. Participation needs time. The attitude of the experts who demand participation, but who also labels residents as suspicious, goes hand in hand with speed and construction site practices that have nothing to do with human processes. These are rhetoric filled with dichotomies and stereotypical polarizations linked to the suburbs. Instead, it becomes increasingly difficult to say what a suburb is.