HOMELESS-FREE CITY CENTER (Turin, 2023)

The city center of Turin has recently been the scene of two terrible events. Firstly, on the night of October 26 2020, there were some protests organised by some citizens from the suburbs, who took out their anger destroying the store windows of several high-fashion stores in the main street of Via Roma. Secondly, the Town Hall of Turin has proposed to prohibit homeless people from appropriating the streets in the company of their dogs, leading to a slow expulsion of homeless people from the city center. These two events, , though differing from each other in several particulars, are linked by the anger growing up in the outskirts, where the weakest social groups are feeling misunderstood by the local administrations. In 2023, the Town Hall of Turin, instead of launching novel integrations policies, has decided to strengthen the social barrier dividing the center from the outskirts by promoting a total commodification of the main commercial streets of the city center. This barrier, previously invisible, has finally materialised becoming a huge glass wall which allows exclusive access only to consumers and generally to wealthy citizens. The privatisation of public space and its new exclusive identity have never been so declared.