DiverCity at stake under planetary urbanization: Theoretical pitfalls and challenges to the Italian cities

This contribution focuses on DiverCity, conceived as a key concept with which to analyse the current far-reaching change of urbanization processes strongly determined by an increasing number of immigrants bodily marking urban places – besides the enormous amount of intertwined flows and powers. This concept uses a ‘play on words’ between diversity and city, in which these two terms are understood as denoting entities with a one-to-one ontological interconnection. DiverCity is at the same time the bedrock of a ‘difference-sensitive’ planning, transformative and proactive, and the highly imaginative frontier at which to deal with multicultural planning enigmas that could open the doors to new planning potentialities. The concept is both unfolded in its urban nature (Perrone 2010) and stressed – under the presently debated theory of planetary urbanization – to such an extent that it implies a rethinking of the urban itself (Brenner, Schmidt, 2012).