Urban informality and users-led social innovation: Challenges and opportunities for the future human centred city

Urban informality characterises contemporary socio-spatial transformations and increasingly appears as a way of producing, organising, and managing the future city. The pervasiveness of the spontaneous dimension of urban life, with its various expressions, encourages the experimentation of new forms and alternative uses of spaces, spreads social practices, and suggests different city-making approaches, thus inspiring innovative urban development paths. Based on these assumptions, this paper focuses on social innovation as a process and strategy that valorises the social and cultural aspects of the community and promotes innovations in spatial planning. It investigates how the creative and often informal actions put in place by spontaneous groups and associations foster social cohesion. A comparative analysis of two case studies in Marseille and Rome offers a multidimensional approach to social innovation that includes collective action and local stakeholders empowerment, aiming at changing the world for the better. The results call for a critical reflection on the transformative power of innovation as a mechanism for social change. At the crossroads of spontaneous or rationally organised movements, one wonders to what extent innovation, by promoting creative and systemic solutions, can contribute to the design of the future city on a human scale.