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The paper addresses the issue of contested land and the clarification of blurred rights concerning urban environments with weak public sector territorial control and the entrenchment of organized crime in the Global North. Adopting a grey spacing approach, we focus on urban informalities in the urban region of Naples (south of Italy) such as uncontrolled land use, ranging from unlawful waste disposal to unauthorized building. We argue that in-depth field research may be helpful in unravelling the entanglement of the formal and the informal, and its findings may become a resource for planning. On the one hand, this is possible by leveraging the informal in order to carry out forward-looking policies and, on the other, by channelling informal practices into suitable formal tools benefitting the public interest. In conclusion, modifying current balances and powers concerning land is a political action, as it helps treat conflicts, unravel the dispute between real and presumed rights, and uncover hidden rights in the public arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we look at the demographic changes in the largest cities in Southern Italy, the most significant trend is a balance between population growth and decline, affecting in particular inner urban areas, which is due to the predominance of new ethnic inhabitants. After having described these demographic changes in Naples and Palermo, the paper will include some considerations on the 'institutional' landscape of planning and the related policies. How do planning policies and practices face this quick change in such peripheral contexts, which are new to the phenomenon? Can the plural composition of the local society be viewed as an opportunity, and not just as a threat? The paper will use some analyses of the immigrants' distribution and characteristics of housing problems as elements of discussions of the changes in the urban social structure, which can be considered as positive potential for a more equal and culturally mixed context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]