L'organizzazione sociale nello spazio. Argomenti di un buon vicinato scientifico 10.4458/3444-01

Abstract

Social organization in space: a case of scientific neighbourliness. – Sociology, as a general science of social relations and interactions, shares with geography a call to work as an accepted consolidation pivot for contributions coming from different fields.

After showing how space as a topic is seen from the micro- and macro-sociological perspectives, the paper is mostly devoted to the Author’s studies on regional small industry development in so-called “third Italy”.

The research methodology includes references to different disciplinary fields, the unifying perspective being the combination of four regulation mechanisms for local economy: market, organization, reciprocity, political exchange.

The same methodology is then applied to Torino, an industrial city undergoing deep transformation. This kind of analysis has proved itself useful when private and public actors were engaged in strategic planning for the city.