New meanings for public housing estates through the coproduction of knowledge – Findings from an action-research laboratory

Are we sure that public action in housing in Italy is an outdated issue and what is left of public housing estates is more a problem than a resource? The paper aims at challenging this view at the light of the results of a two years action-research in the public housing estate of San Siro in Milan. Studying the neighbourhood from inside and interacting with inhabitants and local actors allows focusing the role plaid by the estate in the city, the problems of the area as well as the variety of practices developed by inhabitants to address day life problems. Looking at this peculiar situation through the lens of an interactive approach affords insights to understand some general trends in the marginal peripheries of contemporary city. The paper develops two lines of argument: the relationship between the methodological approach adopted and the understanding of marginal situations, the role/capacity of public housing stock to answer new living needs in urban area. In the first, the main issues at stake concern the tools to produce scientific and usable knowledge effectively dealing with the social-spatial exclusion of residents in underprivileged large-scale social housing estates. In the second, at the core of analysis innovative forms of collaboration and exchange among inhabitants and local institutions (University becoming one of the actors). These reflections open new fields of action for housing policies: a new sense of public housing as a common good in a perspective of interaction and participation among public institutions, inhabitants and local actors.