The Social Life of Non-Places: Lessons from Florence Peripheries

The concept of non-places, introduced by Marc Augé in his 1994 book of the same name, is often used to describe most of the spaces that characterize the contemporary city. My thesis is that this concept is an ideological device that is both useless and harmful. Spaces labeled as non-places have been little studied by academics, and neglected by architects, urban planners and politicians. I argue that by challenging Augé’s concept of non-places, and proffering a theory that instead elevates and promotes these important spaces, it would be possible to manage and organize them appropriately as well as explore their full potential through architectural and urban design. In the first part of this essay I discuss the definition of the concept of non-place provided by Augé and I sketch a critique of this theory. In the second part, I frame the ideology of non-places within the more general attitude of nostalgia for the historic city and of the ‘phobia’ towards contemporary suburban developments. In the third part, I focus on the social life of non-places, commencing from empirical research conducted over several years in the Florence and Prato areas. In the final section I draw conclusions on the policy and design implications of this analysis, making some proposals to revise national and regional legislation governing shopping centers, outlets, multiplexes and service stations.