Ripensare l’abitare smart. Il contributo del paradigma della giustizia spaziale

The main purpose of the research is a critical elaboration and a proposal of ethical and anthropological categories that act as a guide to think about sustainable dwelling, and in particular the city of the future, as being able to promote human flourishing. The question concerns a specific debate, predominant today, which is that of smart cities. The project has identified, in the context of justice's theories, the paradigm of spatial justice to critically investigate it and propose transformative perspectives. This is in fact a valid key of interpretation, able to make a significant contribution and to give a trait of novelty compared to the scenarios elaborated up to now. As a whole, the work is composed of three distinct parts. The first is dedicated to the explication of spatial justice’s paradigm, by reference to the contributions of Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, David Harvey and Doreen Massey. This paradigm is characterized by integrating space into considerations of justice: here, the spatial dimension is understood as ontological support and as a social product, questioning the long dominant belief that sees space as a fixed, a-problematic and neutral reality. The second part uses the perspective of spatial justice to critically understand the smart city model. After a first analysis aimed at reconstructing the concept of smart cities, the survey focuses on the inadequacy of thinking this urban model from standardized indicators grids which actually derive from a competitive approach that interprets the city according to the performance criteria and measuring possibilities. After comparing epistemological and methodological matters, the work lingers on the specific content of smart cities and criticizes one-sidedness of technological emphasis, conjugated as a support of socio-economic and territorial reorganization. On the one hand emerges the need to investigate the triadic relationship between technology, space and human beings; while on the other arises the urgency of bringing to light the risks of reductionist readings of the territories, especially rural ones, that a certain logic can interpret only as mere attachments of the urban areas. The evaluation of critical issues, and also the indication of new possible directions for the paradigm of smart city were put into play as relevant not only for public policy, but also for the technological companies. The last part of the work, finally, describes two different case studies related to products developed by the company partner of this research project. In this way it is pointed out that a real smart dwelling cannot overlook issues of justice or injustice that may result from a human constitutive factor such as spatiality.