Ricerc@Sapienza

The contribution illustrates the development of shopping centers as new centralities, taking particular inspiration from the case of Rome, where the phenomenon has strongly characterized the settlement development in the last fifteen years. The new Master Plan, approved in 2008, has in fact provided many centralities according to a policy of polycentrism and the redevelopment of the suburbs. In reality, these centralities have been mainly reduced to large shopping malls with attached residential areas. They are essentially real estate and financial transactions of great impact on the territory. Supported by a deep field research and considering in particular the case of Bufalotta - Porta di Roma, the contribution illustrates and discusses the effects of these centralities on the organization of the city and on living in the suburbs. Not only expectations of the proposed policies were disregarded, but also there are important distortions on the organization of local trade, on transport, on the role of reference polarities in urban life.