ABSTRACT

Since the 1950s, research in a number of Third World cities has pointed to the presence of groups who are not absorbed by the limited industrial and commercial sectors characteristic of many peripheral cities and who appear to survive on the margins of modern industrial society. One of the central concepts used to analyse these phenomena was 'mirginality', which was transposed from its origins in the study of US cities with large immigrant populations (mainly through the work of Park) and adapted to the Third World, particularly Latin America. The economy of much of Naples has been described as 'I'economia del vicolo'. This concept of the 'economy of the alley' attempts to describe the survival of a fairly large number of people on perhaps a single 'income' which is redistributed within the immediate neighbourhood.